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Tempest [NCTH/World Turns fic] PG

Author's Note: Spoiler:- Notes: Prologue:

Greetings and hello! Ive set out a plate of warm brownies, in hopes of attracting reviewers, lets see if that works. First off, I'd like to quash a few rumors. No, I'm notdone with World Turns yet. This was a fun-side fic I wanted to come up with as a kind of rehearsal and play out some characters that were getting shoved to the side relatively quickly. Rest assured, I'm still working on the first chapters of Turns and hopefully will have enough insight to get those polished up and get on to new chapters.

Next off: The story itself for Tempest is Done. There's a lot of reviewing still to do though, so look for an update every two weeks, hopefully it's less than that but it gives me a cushion just in case. Also, my gratitude to Blaziken10285 for Beta-reading this.

Now for continuity. I'm trying my best to explain everything away, but so you know now, Tempest lands four years before World Turns. For those of you who have read them, this is just prior to Xman's "Professor X", tieing into his Chapter 4. Additionally, this is concurrent with Feralninja's arc between his Chapter 9 Storm Front and his Chapter 22: Hero's Home.”Omega” is a reference to League of Heroes, but that’s where it ends, just a fleeting comment about action. If I've done my job right, then you all won't have had to read those stories, but they're worth your time and continuity is a fun thing amongst friends.

As one is want to do, a telephone rang in a family room. It was a simple phone, sitting in its cordless receiver on the wall. The house wasn’t that elegant either, and showed signs of a family living in it in the form of papers here and there, a few sweatshirts draped where it was handier than getting the heat turned up or down, and a general lived-in dishevelment. The trainer occupying this house had just gotten home from caring for the ranch Pokémon on a late shift, his wife was in the kitchen, preparing something in the way of a dessert and a surprise. Across his lap purred away an Espeon, while an Umbreon enjoyed an ear-scratching from the arm-rest of the sofa.

At the first ring of the phone, the Espeon’s ears twitched, and feeling her trainer shift, she slid sleepily off his lap and onto the cushion.

“Sorry, Sunbeam, I should get this.”

The Umbreon, being much more awake at this time of the night, decided to get up at the second ring, and do whatever it is that cat-like species of Pokémon do unseen.

Third ring, and I made it over to the table the phone set upon.

<"Glover."> The voice on the other end spoke. A darker voice, still somewhat maturing, was on the other end. A voice I hadn't heard for some time. <"my apologies for bothering you Glover, but I need some outside assistance.">

"Wes! You’re never a bother. It’s good to hear you. How are things?"

<"No time. I'm on an old phone line, in an abandoned Port. When they see this line active, they'll cut it too. Hoenn's locked down, Glover. Maxie and Archie are free, wor-"> CLICK! The line died, and was replaced by a buzz of the dial tone.

Wes always kept to himself. He and Rui were quite content on the edge of the main island of Hoenn, or wherever out of civilization put them. Or rather, he was happy being away from people, and she followed him blindly and lovingly.

That lone sentence he got out though had made me quite worried. So I made a long-distance call to Indigo, Kanto.

"Hello, Lance. Have you got a minute?”

<"Sure Glover, what can I do you for?">

"I just got a call from Wes in Hoenn. You remember him. Blonde, sharp blue jacket a bunch of us copied, blew up a base in the Orre Desert."

Over the handset of the analog phone, Lance made a sound a bit like a motorboat spurting half in the water, possibly spitting out his drink. <"Where?”> He asked incredulously. <”How?">

"Why?" I puzzled.

<"they don't tell you a whole lot out in the desert do they? Hoenn's been out of contact for some time. Stuff goes in, comes out empty, or is turned away. No one's talked for weeks, and there's a weather pattern to beat the end of the world.">

"Which makes sense. He said something about Maxie and Archie being free."

Lance made that sputtering sound again.

"You said something about a weather pattern. Where are the Rayquaza?"

<Not sure. I know from my Dragonmaster contacts that we're missing at least one. There've been reports from the International Space Station though, that the others are giving Hoenn an extremely wide berth.">

"That's odd. Are you heading over there?"

<"I'm working on it. But we've never seen this before. If Archie's out, then this could very well mean that Kyogre is active, and that's an even bigger concern. Kanto doesn't want to get involved in anything, and anyway it’s just too far for them to justify. I'm trying to get out of here, but with my reputation, and I don't have any Hoenn Native Pokémon…"> He might have well said what was on his mind: "I could really use you, an outsider."

"I tell you what. I got a call in, maybe I can get a spy out."

<"What do you have in mind?">

"Not what, who. You forget; I have a Rotom."

Grabbing a white and red-stripe trimmed ball from the recharge rack, I popped him out, and told the little orange light bulb looking Pokémon my plan; namely, going through a phone line. Moto jumped into my computer and typed out a reply.

I'll need a booster shot.

"We can arrange that."

A small flash, and Moto was back out of my computer, waiting impatiently until I lead an Electivire back into the house. Zaprong had been a powerhouse of mine since the second Cipher incident, until I formally retired my competitive team. He gave Rotom his booster shot directly, then grabbed a phone cord, plugging it into his tail to charge the line and try to make the trip into the phone network easier for Moto.

---
It didn't take Moto long to return. He popped back into my computer, and since I had to hang up from Lance to allow him passage, I opened up a caht program on the computer, which he used to to relay info both of us.

I couldn't get a lot. They had three Porygon in the digital system, I couldn't step out of the old system. The populace are in camps, one in Mauville, another in Fortree. Probably more. Checkpoints on major roads, don't know where. It's a lockdown.

Porygon; this meant someone behind these two teams had some brain. The software Pokémon are by their nature unable to leave the digital realm for a mechanical one. As long as it utilizes digital commands, Porygon and their evolutions can manipulate it. By contrast, Rotom are mechanical creatures. They can live in cyberspace, even stop and send impulses, but they are not by their nature able to manipulate coding. In a lot of cases, the two are isolated by this feature, much like two sides of a coin that touch but do not interact unless Rotom choose to cross into the digitized plane. At key points though, such as this one where VOIP meets old school telephone cables, can be a crucial ambush point.

Thanks Glover. Lance e-mailed back.

About that time, I turned around and found my wife wondering why an Electivire had hold of our phone cord. I gave her the short version. A look of worry spread across.

"It's that bad?"

"Sounds like it." I wasn't going to tell her though, that we had no idea how bad. I also left out the part about the storm deities, though Cayna was a smart girl and probably could make the jump from “escaped criminals” to “region-wide lockdown” fairly quickly. "You're worried about your family in Verdenturf, aren't you? I’m sure they're fine."

"I know that line, I used it when we were saving the kids from the wreckage of the Under’s collapse, if you'll recall. And yes, I am." I gave her a re-assuring hug, which she returned, but with a message.

"I think you should go check this out." She whispered in my ear.

"I can't up and leave my family. The world has its saviors."

"Yes, and you're one of them, at least you were for a time. If this blows up, you'll wish you had been there. I know you wanted to get in on Omega; that you've missed the traveling about."

"Well, yes, but we had our own world to protect, and she's still my priority, as are you. I’ve got my time coming, this one is for being settled down."

"Glover, Let me put it to you this way. If ANYTHING happens to my sister and her family..."

She had regretted moving out to here, she’d grown up in Sinnoh, her folks both no longer with us, but those of her relatives still around were on the other side of the globe from her. "Ultimatum received. I'll get Janie tucked in, explain it, and start packing."

"Janie understands it perfectly." My afore-mentioned world said in the same vocal patterns as a childhood friend of hers. "Daddy's gonna go be a Superhero again." Behind the little girl, a Lillipup bounced happily on its paws

Children, how do you deny them such innocent wisdom?

"Yes, I suppose so. And you'll be a brave little girl for me, look out for Mom, and I'll be back with new stories for bedtime, okay? And don't forget Tally if you get scared."

‘Arf arf’ from the little dog, reassuringly.

"I'll be," She caught herself out of her character, "er, Janie will be fine, Dad. She'll protect Mom."

It truly was re-assuring that the family was behind me on this. I just hoped that hiding under the third person wasn’t too much of a front for her.

"Well good then. Come on, Hoenn's got enough time for a little girl's bedtime story." Her pokéball patterned pajamas marched up to bed to be ready for me.

---
I spent the evening throwing stuff together. I’d never torn my old Trainer Bag down, though some things had been taken out that I needed, put someplace that I’d remember needing to back into my bag, and then promptly lost. Cay helped rip up the study to find things at ten PM, but by midnight, she had to go to bed so she’d be good for school teaching tomorrow. By three AM, the Garage yielded the last of my lost things, the old red tent I’d won. I also discovered the solution to one of life’s great mysteries: Where do cat Pokémon go when we don’t see them? Moonlight the Umbreon was behind a workbench munching on, well, I’m not sure what it was he’d caught, and I certainly wasn’t interested in finding out. Suffice to say he was getting much more enjoyment out of his kill than I certainly was, and that he was saving Cay and I on pest control. I fell into bed exhausted after that, stared at the back of my eyelids, and slapped the alarm clock three hours later.

“You’ve got everything?” She asked me as I stumbled into the kitchen doorframe.

“Yep.”

She straightened the lapels on my jacket. “You know what you’re doing, right?”

“Not a clue.”That got a dark looking stare of death. “Outside of going in, running intel, and leaving, taking and saving as many people as I can and leaving a large hole for others to go through.”

“That’s the right answer. You just be good and hurry home, okay dear?”

“Of course. I kissed her cheek, and started to leave before the pitter patter of little feet on the carpeted stairs told me to wait for Janie.

Here's CH1 guys, not as much to say here, but I do want to warn yuou to watch some details, they may well seem important later on.

Miss the Intro? Click here to flip back!
I hopped a plane out of Gateon Port. Phenac had a small puddle-jumper of an airstrip; thanks to the remnants of a Cipher base converting nicely into a hangar, but Gateon was the only one to rate an actual Hub. And at that, the majority of the time, that airport handles necessity runs, mostly Search and Rescue stuff. The Orre region has grown up too much on its ground transportation, and is too stubborn to give that up. The flight was rough, loud, and otherwise uneventful. Secretly, a lot of people wished the man who mastered aerial refueling via blimp for commercial flights had never been born, as it meant a lot of missed opportunities to stretch out. He was probably a brilliant man, who knew better than us, and took the train or boat.

From Kanto, I hopped one of the Sea Gallop Lines’ ferries to the Orange Islands, where I caught up with a Research vessel captain I knew very well. His ship was a fine one. The bow was built to be optimal for ice-breaking. The top deck of it was a wide, sweeping oval. There was a low-set window area for the Bridge of the ship, and off the back were two viewing decks hanging over the side. Several runabouts and submersibles docked between the two viewing nacelles. I missed most of the trip though; this would be the most sleep I’d get for quite some time. An ensign named Wesley woke me when we arrived.

The water was surprisingly calm for what I’d seen happening around Hoenn. Satellites over the actual landmass were down, but others had gotten shots of the edges of storms. Not surprising to sailors, the seas to them were always about give and take: Bad weather for someone else was good for you. ‘When you sail in the warmth of the Sun, take pity on the vessel in the rain, for it is his pleasure in which you sail.’ I think it was.

"Bring me up a mile from that storm, there, Captain. Under these conditions, Kyogre doesn't have more than a half-mile range before the weather pattern follows him, or he has to go with no storm at all."

The captain nodded, and brought her up to a stop. I called out Ace, whose natural speed would get me more quickly to land than my normal means, and so I could use his leg fins as a stirrup of sorts. Then he shot off the boat's deck, towards an island situated between Slateport and Mauville.

Some call it a mini-Sinnoh. There really isn't a name for it, and humanity has done little with it. Usually, it's just a big, rough, forested lump of an island with a lot of caves in it that cartographers begrudgingly draw.

Usually it's not inhabited.

"Multiple Human Life signs" Ace told me telepathically. his own genetic nature gave him the ability to pick out life signs, even in this torrent of water.

"I understand. Let's stick to course though, land, and I'll switch to the Gizmo." He nodded, and set down on the island.

The rain was horrendous. I couldn't see a whole lot of anything, even through a night visor. For example, the Machamp, Magmortar, and Octillery that came up behind me as soon as I had Ace recalled. The latter two had their "guns" aimed at me, the first didn't need any.

"STOP RIGHT THERE" A young voice trying to be intimidating, commanded, err, yelled at me more like, not yet good at the difference.

"Who do you think you are?" A girlish voice took up.

"Just a trainer trying to save his family." I replied, now putting my hands in the air.

"NAMES MISTER."

"Glover."

"Why are you here?!"

"I told you, I'm looking to save some people."

"Why are you here?"

"This island was as good a resting place to change steeds as any. If there are guards in every city, I need to cut across routes at rural places."

"YEAH? WELL," The first voice was set to rip me apart, but stopped. "Well, actually, that makes a lot of sense."

His friend saw a hole in my answer though. "Tell me then, Glover, if you're really from the outside, how did you know about Hoenn? No news has been out for weeks."

"Someone did get a call out, but no news is exactly how the Kanto League found out. Things like that get noticed. Now, if you don't mind, this hands above my head routine is getting a bit numbing, would you please let me go?"

"Well, we'll let the Master confirm you, but I suppose you can relax. "Da Vinci, take him to the Master."

"Champ Ma." I wasn't going to like this.

---
Yes, there is something decidedly unpleasant about being thrown over a Machamp's shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Upside down, I had no idea where we were going, and the rain wasn't helping my vision any either. Then I was let down next to a fire with a hard thump.

Poor Ditto, it had all gone to his head. The Machamp who was hauling us in had him equally upside down, though now only had a small blob of Gizmo’s bottom end in his hand. The gelatinous Pokémon wobbled about with each step as he hung, clearly unamused with having his stomach down next to his eyeballs and slapping about.

"Ta-da, we found a spy, Master."

I blinked a bit, making out the addressed figure, a purple-haired man who’s clothing carnival-like confessed he used to be more mass-filled than he is now, no doubt due to hiding on the island. "Master; duh. I should've guessed, knowing the area. The Trick Master."

The addressed figure eyed us carefully for a moment, then looking at Gizmo and shaking his head, perhaps that Ditto was the wrong color for the person he was thinking of, pulled out a campfire pot of tea and poured out two glasses into old tin cups."At your service. You look familiar."

"Glover. It's been twelve years."

"Oh! I do remember now. I hate your guts, for beating me at every turn."

"Still sore? I won fair and square."

He just grumbled. "So, my pupils tell me you're here as a stepping stone to save some family." In the firelight, I could see well. A 12 year old boy, and a nine year old girl, both brunette, and neither looking like they should own the kind of Pokémon they were commanding.

"That was the catalyst, yes. While I'm here though, I might as well try to blow open the doors to Hoenn. What are you guys doing still here?"

"Of course not. I'd expect the Trick Master to be able to hide so well." He turned almost giddy at the compliment, the man’s ego was easily poked for better or worse, though my motivation had been more that Da Vinci had four good reasons to not mention that Magma at least used to be dumber than a box of rocks, and all of them were attached to his shoulders.
"What I meant though, is why are you here?"

"Oh, that's easy: Kyogre. For a while, he was parked right out there." The Trick Master pointed out towards where I'd last seen Pacifidlog.

"Ah. You guys know he's moved more towards Mossdeep, as far as we can tell. If you have a boat, you can make a clean run for it; head South and then East to the Orange Islands."

He looked rather sheepishly, but with a twist of evil and wanting to rip out my intestines and eat them with a spork, into the depths of my soul. It was actually much the same look he gave me when I made an ice-ballet out of his finely and meticulously-waxed-over-the-course-of-a-weekend floor traps. I had a marvelous time, it was the most enjoyable non-Pokémon twenty minutes of my time in Hoenn, and most of that was me showboating. Getting hit with a pop-up tent I was supposed to have won, wasn't. Oh well, that was the past.

And at least he didn't have a tent this time.

I warmed a little longer by their fire, shielded by a stone outcropping, much as a lean-to would, before attempting to get up. Almost immediately, a previously unseen figure, fairly tall, stepped out and planted its hand into my back. It felt feminine: long and thin; it also felt fairly weak. I took the suggestion though and slumped back into my seat.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” it asked before slipping back into the shadows.

“You aren’t thinking of leaving us so soon are you?” the Trick Master inquired, almost darkly.

“Thought I’d get a look at what I needed to report back, before I left.”

“Ah.” He took a sip of his tea. “You mean snoop.”

“Well, no, though I can see how that could be misconstrued.”

“Quite. Trust me though, if you make it into the region, you’ll see your proof enough. Take our word for it, life out here is hard.”

I jiggled the soft, mushy top of Gizmo’s head. "Well then, we won't be making it to the mainland this way, so I must be off." Ditto took that as a cue and began shifting about. "I trust there will be an escort?"

"Yes of course."

"Well then," at my side, replacing the Goopy One was a sleek jetpack that shone off the fire. Two ridges came off of its back, fitting snugly after years of transformations around my travel bag. A third one hung down like a full-width tail just a bit past the thrust nozzles. I grabbed the strap to it, carefully slipped it over my shoulders, and coaxed the cinch up tight. “I guess I need to be going. Thank you for the tea, and the hospitality.”

“Of course.” He waved me off. Da Vinci and the Magmortar fell in place beside me, and we made it to the edge of the island. Gizmo flicked twice before getting a good ignition. We rose several inches, testing the lift in the rain, when I felt him shiver slightly.

“Not yet, I don’t want the wings.”

‘Ditto?’

“I want to cross straight on, it's a stealthier approach.”

‘Ditto. Dit dit. Ditto ditto?’
“While I do create a larger target, I’m blocking the thrust from view with my body, and the ridge on your back hides it from those behind and to the side of us. If we flew in as normal, anyone behind us could see the flame. Crossing here is crucial. It will be slow going though; do you think you can support the trip on power alone?

‘dit. To. Dit.’Piece. Of. Cake.

Spoken like an athlete who had no idea how out of shape he was.

---
Touchdown. For my first time in the Hoenn region in eight years. Ditto did wonderfully, but I could tell by how eagerly he inhaled my signature Poffin I offered him that is wasn’t a moment too soon.

The rain was obviously weaker here. Through it, I could tell that the combined forces of the Teams had blown the river bridge. Signs of a Ferry, probably Aqua controlled, and riverboats were everywhere, unoccupied or at the least guarded by seamen too drunk to see me. It wasn’t unlike that science-fiction movie Pearl Harbor, with all the unsuspecting sailors going about their business and unaware of the enemy approaching.

One thing's for sure, it’s kinda nice taking down criminals using weather Pokémon, because you can tell where they are by reading the weather. For example, despite the rain, I could feel a slight aridness, like rain in a desert; the simultaneous wet and dry. That meant I was crossing into Groudon's territory, and leaving the realm of Kyogre.

Off to my right, the East, I spotted the gate house. We were in luck too, a patrolman was just coming out. I released Sunbeam, who padded up to the man. He looked her square in the eyes, and had enough time to mutter "what the blazes…" before the Psycat dumped his short term memory, and made him pass out.

Ditto studied the cloth a bit, then I had him transform around me. It was a traditional Magma garb with the red hooded cloak over a brown jumpsuit. I pulled Ditto up around me and headed back in.

"Back so soon?" The guard inside asked me. It was clear they weren't expecting anyone, his feet were up on the desk, and he was reading a fashion magazine. From the fuzz on his face giving away his young age, I figured it wasn't the clothing he was eyeing so intently. He too, was wearing the Magma uniform.

"Stupid crap radios..." I grumbled back, trying more for an 'I'm cold, I don't like this gig' voice than to impersonate the patrolman. His friend took no notice, and continued flipping through his magazine.

"Preachin' to the Choir. Hey, get a load of the legs on this gal." he wolf-whistled, and turned the magazine towards me. A blonde girl, Unovan by the looks, was showing off a sweater-like shawl/sleeveless, that was bridged by three fairlyconfidently placed pieces of black opaque silk fabric. I said a silent prayer that Janie would never get an itch to wear a thing like that and faked a nod of consent. Then I turned back to the radios, and selected a particular trooper; one that looked like it worked, despite being hit by a herd of Rhydon, and wouldn’t be missed.

Ditto whispered into my ear. Despite being "Ditto dit. to. ditto." I understood clearly that fabric transformations weren't his cup of tea, or his forte, and I needed to get out of there. So I slipped out behind the guard again, who was back to ogling pictures of girls half his age, and thrice his league.

Outside, Ditto relaxed his form for a minute while Moto slipped into his new digs in the radio. The Poltergeist complained of the worn circuitry, but informed that he would make it work. Being possessed gave it a better range, and a much more efficient battery life. Rotom would continue to scan the bands for activity to assure we know if we're discovered. I tucked the now tangerine radio into my pocket. Ditto chirped that he was ready, spread his wings into a glider forme, and we made a run for it.

Then I slipped Ditto back on, walked a short distance into the shrubbery, I donned a flight helmet from my travel bag with night-vision and a few other little info screens on it, and left Ditto to the rest. We lifted slowly to the treetops, and after l swept the horizons visually, lifted the rest of the way, laid out flat, and made with the flying. He unfurled two six foot wings off the sides of the thruster pack and a tail boom, which hooked into my legs giving me support and us in general a unified flight. I’ve been told once that it looked a lot like a Charizard in flight, and I would assume that the Rocket sentry I was interrogating at that time would know what we looked like well enough.

---
About two hours later, Ditto and I were approaching Mt. Ruine from the south. The forest whizzed past underneath us at great speed, and the rain had given way to a brilliantly clear, bright nighttime sky. The air was purely arid now, and quite warm despite being almost 11pm.I knew who that meant.

Ruine is believed to be a collapsed Mountain. The sand is the remnants from the collapse. Wind now passes viciously through the openings, scooping the fine powder up and tossing it about like fine BBs into the Meowth litter box that everyone in Hoenn calls the Ruine Desert.

I may sound cocky around the sands, being from Orre and all, but believe me when I tell you that I'd still rather go over a desert than through it.

Apparently though, so would Team Magma. Seemingly half their force was camped on top of the Ruine, their dark but distinctive hood shawls blowing in the wind. They seemed to be huddled underneath blast shields of some kind, though from behind them I couldn’t tell what they were precisely. Truthfully, I had hoped they'd be more interested in the land routes than putting up random guards on cliff edges. If they were, I had sorely underestimated the number of recruits they had.
I directed Ditto into the trees beside Trainer Tower. I grabbed a hold of a tall trunk while he retracted into a backpack shape, and climbed down to escape any notice, such as landing in the road might draw. I'd not travelled the back parts of Hoenn as a trainer like this, and was navigating solely by compass and feeling around. Eventually, I hit the Ruine, and then groped my way east until I found a windy gap big enough to squeeze through.

That gap opened into the Dragon's Tail, so named because of the way the Ruine closes around the desert, and that it's a popular place for Flygon to roost while their child Trapinch grow up in the sands.

I saw now why Half of Team Magma was on top of the Ruine; the other half was camped around what could only be called a burial mound. I tucked in behind a rocky edge to see what was going on, unsure of how I'd get out if discovered.

As if to tease him, the leading edge to their drill tank shattered. Again. Mack was furious. The cave had resisted Pokémon, dynamite, hand tools, and now the eighth drill bit. One thing to be said for the Ancients, they sure knew their concrete. Mack swore to the heavens; he was getting impatient. The Magma admin dashed outside from the first of the two inner chambers to find his drill bit.

His bit was being drug by a lonely Magma grunt. From purely wanting to get this done, the Admin grabbed the other end of the four foot long, hundred pound bit. Regardless of the cause though, the Grunt was glad for the help, his loyalty newly instilled in his leader.

Inside the cave, the grunts had already gotten the broken bit out. Mack swung the bit around and over his head, nearly sweeping the grunts in the room unconscious. It thunked into its place in front of the main cowling, and before long the drill was unhappily churning away at the odd substance. This bit didn't seem to mind being used for evil at least, and made it through. The opening yawned wider and wider, before popping through the other side. The tank gave Magma a nice, round, three foot hole in the wall before the drill cowling jammed. It took them another good hour to get the behemoth back out, but no sooner than that, and not waiting for light, Mack charged in.

He tried everything. His Armaldo swamped it in water. The Slugmas brought heat to the stone giant. Swallow hacked and slashed with Air Cutters at the stone behemoth, all to no avail. He tried bullets, but those just ricocheted around. The empty Pokéball was unresponsive of the sleeping monster even, bouncing cleanly off and not trying to capture it. Until finally, out of pure frustration...

'bum dun bun' rumbled back, quietly, but full of power. The eyes flickered to life in a long, rhythmic pattern. From a bent over position, the rock golem swept the room suddenly and violently with two mighty arms into the far walls, crushing all hope of control by Magma forces with their sternums.

---
The Tomb of Regirock was designed to withhold the creature, but it was designed to do so in its entirety. Like an arch, you start poking holes in it, and it becomes fundamentally weak throughout.
A Hyper Beam passed through the inner wall, then exploding through the outer, to prove this point.

Mack must have foreseen this possible result. Magma grunts scattered. Those loyal to the cause for the Hoenn National Guard tanks and Howitzers, as well as the bunkers, others, perhaps more intelligently, for their lives. Regirock burst through the rubble with a new vigor. The Golems had raged the world before, but each time protecting something, one, or place. This was new, like pure hatred. Maybe it was the ecological balance the three had been charged with, which Magma and Aqua had now screwed over, who knows; but that Regirock was mad. From its back, Stone Edge missiles shot off into the darkness, seeking out the runners. There would be no quarter. Then the Rock did something odd. It smashed its rock club hands into the rubble of its prison. Using its stone healing abilities, the Regirock then pieced its hands back together, forming three long pebble fingers, and a thick, stony thumb. He grabbed two Magma grunts, and smashed them together. Several Torkoal let loose on the creature, but with little effect. The Grunt-owned Cacturne were doing better with Energy Ball and Bullet Seed. Several Pokémon were using Solarbeam, but the desert was overriding Groudon's abilities from this far away and the attack was taking time to charge. This was meant to be a Magma Pride operation, so no one had water types. Mack had been given a Tyranitar, which was now buried with its trainer in the ball. Ground types were getting by with Mud Shots, but the Regi was too quick for Magnitudes, and there were too many allies for Earthquake.

A problem Regirock didn't seem to have. He swept the desert with a powerful one, but it was partially absorbed by the sand. Several Grunts tried to stand back up while the Tanks finally dialed in on their target. One of the weapons let off what had to be an armor piercing round, because the Regirock exploded into a million pieces. Shots and attacks followed the shell to make sure it was dead, but they just threw up a sand screen. Magma grunts danced jubilantly for life until someone noticed pebbles rolling towards them. A few smaller ones as if the wind was carrying them. Several though, were too large and moving in too much of an organized pattern. Regirock assembled himself behind the Grunts, and pulverized them with Zap Cannons Stone Edges, and everything he could.

More shots, this time from forces on the Rim. The creature howled in a fierce call that sounded of an old motherboard fan cranking out. It turned around then on its heels. I caught a glimpse of its eyes. I was never good at reading Binary, and for similar reasons I failed Braille no matter how hard I tried, but you could've been illiterate and known what was implied.

Murder, was quite literally, filling its eyes.

It began climbing with a furious savagery, powerful tremors going into the walls as it did dug in its fingers and hauled its massive body up the side. Attacks raged down at it, trying to knock it off the wall. None of the weapons could point far enough down to hit it, it was all up to the Pokémon on the rim, and many of them were no longer interested in sticking around. Those human made a few desparate attempts to roll cartridgaes down the side, once or twice knocking its handhold loose but never for very long.

Ditto chirped, and I agreed. "Screw discreet." we both decided. I jumped hard over my hiding place, kicked off the stone, and turned sideways to run along the edge of the cliff. Gizmo wasted no time spreading wings and thrusters. I kicked away, pulled my legs up, and allowed him to wrap around them. Several Magmas saw a shadow dart, but couldn't spend time on it.

Regirock saw us too. It took him a moment to finish off those who were still near the Ruine before he charged after Ditto and I, but a moment was all it took.

Ditto poured on speed at the sounds of the titan storming towards us. The sandstorm was turning worse, the winds stronger, slowing us greatly. Still, we hugged the sides of the Ruine, the stone rim that holds the desert in, and swooped hard along its edges.

Then the air sizzled, and a bright ball of light struck Ditto firmly. He lost his focus, and the shape. In that brief moment of frying air particles, I pushed myself away from the cliffs we’d been following. The moment following, the attack broke across Ditto’s back, destroying is focus and the flight form and we tumbled head-over heels, then onto my side through the sand.

Sprawled out on the ground, I was happy in the delusion my mind was creating to distract me from pain. It was full of flowers, little Pidgey flying in circles around me, and warmth, and a storm cloud. No, that wasn't right. Storm clouds don't belong in delusions of painlessness.

"Hey, Moron" a voice whispered in my ear. It had no owner, it was simply one of those voices that whisper in your ear. One of those voices who points out that something’s going to happen the second before it does, possibly a cousin to the shoulder angel.

"Yeah, you. Roll over and get back in the game, squishy-boy!" Absentmindedly, I did so. Sand exploded where I had been laying, where two powerful arms were driving in, hoping to pile drive me back into the Orre region through the center of the Earth. I blinked, looked into the eyes of the monster. One plan appeared in my head, an old phrase I picked up from stories. Had I been conscious, I would've dismissed it immediately for being illogical. The voice did that for me, but I had already fulfilled my quota of listening to its advice.

"Bah weep granah, weep nini bong?"

"Oh, Brother."

Regirock stopped, his arms above his head, eyes flickering, presumably repeating what I had said. I realized he was expecting something. I dug around in my bag, and offered a Full Incense I’d been given and had no use for.

"You dumb-nut. It has no nose." But the golem was intrigued by the trinket none-the-less. It took a stone out of its chest, carved a small niche into it with its fingers, and placed the Incense holder into the niche. The secret compartment was then inserted back into its chest. The Regirock felt suddenly heavier, and being a Rock type, much happier for this fact. It decided I was friendly enough, knew the secret command, or perhaps just crazy enough that I wasn't worth its time making into pulp, and trudged off South again.

Pain came rushing back to me some time later, washed down with a slow trickle of water. Ace and Sunbeam had popped free from their balls and were looking after Gizmo and I. The former had me propped up on his arm, and offered a piece of one of the Poffins I usually gave to them. Ditto was much more comfortable in an oil-slick like stance.

The bread was sweet, to mask the Revival Herb it was laced with. Like most heal items for Pokemon, it was far more potent than humans should be taking, but in the right amounts, being shot out of the sky was a good use for it.

I glanced over, turning my head was an argument of pain, but it had to be done. Ditto was slowly nibbling on his half of the loaf. Seeing us close to fit for travel, Sunbeam used her telekinesis skills to clean up the impromptu infirmary and cram it back into the hammerspace travel bag. Ace hoisted me up on his back, recalled Ditto and Sunbeam for me, and picked up the chase. We both knew that moving was favorable to staying put in a desert near a Groudon, though we both also knew I probably wasn’t in any shape for moving.

Using his species’ natural abilities, he dashed up the other side of the Ruine and traced the rural roads from the forest. His own speed was weakened, as he needed his arms for holding me and not for balance, but it was still quite substantial, and thanks to illegal research by those who had him before me, increasing exponentially as he went. In another three hours I figured, we'd be close to the northern edge of the island.

The last thing I remember seeing was a sign for “Lavaridge Resort and Spa”, which in better times sounded like a wonderful place to recover from being shot out of the sky, but it would be my luck that Lavaridge probably spiked the water or filled it with Carvanha so that Magma and Aqua couldn’t use it either.

It was more what I heard, or rather didn’t hear as we trvelled, that stuck out to me as I faded in and out of consciousness. When I had travelled these roads as a trainer, there were furious, metallic squawks from the Skarmory, the twisted cries from Murkrow, and sing-song calls from the Noctowl and their baby Hoothoot. The Rattata and Sandshrew evolutions in this area were strong, large creatures that had fed well off the farmers fields. Their predators, as well as barn Meowth and Persian, equally well built creatures, and they in turn were followed meticulously by trainers seeking strength, and farmers interested in the preservation of their crops. There were no sounds of struggle, no communicating cries, nothing. It was quiet, with only the constant rumble of the volcano.

Ace turned a corner, and skidded to a stop, throwing me from one of those fleeting power naps. The scent of the sea smacked me in the face, must have fallen truly asleep and missed the whole trip. I took a moment to blink out my migraine, and saw what he was looking at.

It should have been expected. Between Wes's call and Kyogre being on the other side of the island, the Aqua patrolboats and conning towers anchored in the water shouldn't have been a surprise.

But they were.

I had really wanted to swing out over the edge of the island and back around. Odds were good that Wes would head for the depths of Meteor Falls, and with any luck, the Dragon Tamers would still be holed up in there as well. I had debated coming in that way outright, but going across the island gave me more recon time. Perhaps the fates had dissuaded me from coming this way because of the recon ships, or one of those little voices knew they'd be there and didn't share with the rest of the class, but here we were, now stuck at an impasse.

The road to Fallarbor was out. Any smart military operation would imediately turn that into a food station, or prevent it from nourishing the enemy.

That meant backtracking, ugh!, and crossing near Mt. Chimney and around, double Ugh! I wasn't normally an asthmatic, but falling from the sky and ash didn't seem like a good idea. It also put us far closer to the likeliest point to hide a Groudon, and a Magma headquarters, than I really wanted to be, even on the North side of the slope, and Lavaridge on the south.

Ace and I puzzled for a brief minute over the map of Hoenn. He saw no options either. We'd be covered by the ash, but there'd be no hiding between the fields of saffron plants, and the crop of beans had been left to grow wild and unattended, and was far too short and sickly to hide us either. There were still mushrooms growing in the area, and with any luck, I could get the Shroomish and Paras to provide a line of defense behind me, but I really didn't want to take that gamble and find out they weren’t home. From what we could tell, the Spinda had been scared off; the bamboo fields had grown into a nearly impenetrable forest from not being eaten. These were of course, the same plants that HM01 is used on, but in this density we'd be forever hacking our way in.

In short, there were no good ways to get to the far side of Fallarbor. I pretty much had to take the slope of the volcano.

Ditto emerged from his capsule and informed me that he was ready to take over. Ace was after all, rare to this region, and the little blue blob was too stubborn to take defeat. I guess being an invertebrate has its advantages, you get back up quickly. Ace hid a look of relief, of longing for the healing state of mass energy, and motioned me to get back on his back with Gizmo. Hebacktracked us to a stretch of road concealed by trees so we could dash across unseen, if not unheard. Then a fast run to the edge of the forest, where Gizmo took over as the powered hanglider.

Thermals around the volcano were extremely powerful, and we kept climbing quickly. the trip was rough, and Ditto was frequently having to form other things off his body to create drag and cut down on aero-dynamics, and still we spent more time going up than we were going forward. Ditto had learned quite a bit from my other flying types, but he wasn't himself one, and now was one of those times where a Pokémon who could naturally feel their way around the air would be nice. Like the Skarmory who lived around here, for example.

All the while, it was hot. It was radient heat, coming out of the rocks themselves. The jacket I wore, patterned off of Wes's own with a second hand-guard, was made with a fine fabric that breathed in heat and slammed shut in cold, but it just couldn't open enough. Other places, being high in the air was colder, but Mt Chimney was boiling up top; this was literally out of the frying pan and into a fire, Hoenn style.

And yet, for all the heat, you couldn't soar above the island and not take in its breathtaking beauty. Hoenn had long been one of the best retreat places to go to. Trainers who wanted to relax and battle, or take a slower pace for their next league run, fell in love with the region. From this high up, twilight sparkled off the ash, while the first hints of dawn began sweeping the edges of the island in a monochromatic orange. I envied the Space Station scientists. To watch the deep reds and violets swirl into the hurricane that now churned in the Cauldron; they had an awesome view of the breaking of the da...

"Yes, I did just remember that Groudon and Sun is no good. Ditto, we're screwing discreet here as well. We've got to get into Meteor Falls before that thing sweeps us.”

With the sun came sudden temperature rises. Groudon had no effect on celestial bodies, his natural abilities simply made way for the Sun to do what it did best: Bake things, and with no interference from the atmosphere. Ditto folded the glider wings in and we dropped like a Skarmory going after its morning Trapinch. As we shot down the mountain, I saw a Magma outpost. I only hoped that Ditto looked enough like a Pokémon and not a Dive-Bomber as we plummeted in a semi-controlled manner past the tower. We didn't level back out again until we reached the foundation that used to be the House of Lanette. It was scorch marks now, either a serious battle was mounted here, or the marks of the rising sun which was now hot on our heels. The first glimpse of light began peaking over the volcano, and a loud roar echoed over the region. I could only guess what that voice belonged to, but it sounded more strained than the normal recordings of Groudon.

Gizmo took that as a sign to be anyplace else, banked hard, spiraled around, and then wrapped the wings around me before plunging into the river. Little bits of submarine started to form off of him; a few propellers and a rudder, he was taking a gamble that the underground river would be wide enough for us pass through.

I had wanted to use the front entrance, but good for him for remembering basic geography and riverflow. On the other hand, if he was wrong, we'd be climbing the mountain in broad view of the sun.

Which as it so happened, wasn't the case. Against the current, we emerged in a basin at the far south end of the Falls. I hauled the pair of us out onto the shore for a moment. Cold water and adventures in general were getting to me. Perhaps I was out of shape, maybe I underestimated the impact witht the desert, but laying on the damp ground felt good.

Or, perhaps it was the humidity. This was the first place where there was any. Groudon's heat was baking the cave, in turn making the dampness quite warm, and the wet blanket effect may have been making me groggier.

No, no naps yet. Those voices I at least recognized, those were the telepathic voices from Ace and Sunbeam. A static-y gurgle added to them, and I remembered Rotom in the radio that was also now wet.

I looked at Ditto, wrung him out gently, and we made a promise for one final push out of the open.

Gizmo jetted me up the sides of the falls. I'd spent a week in these caves, and navigation was slowly coming back to me. Wasn't there an access...

Yes, there was. Way at the top, there should have been an inner cave. That must be where they are. Ditto switched into a drill for me, and began punching through the stone with relative ease.

"I sure hope they're inside." I told him. "And if not, maybe there's at least a safe place to camp out for a night."

---
"Do you hear that?"

"Yes, I do. Sounds like a motorized Digger Drill."

"They found us!"

"Or someone has."

"I'll take care of this."

---
And... Ditto and I were through. Now, to find out if anyone was-

"Yoshi, Dragonbreath!"

'Bagon Bag!'

"Wait! That’s not-!"

FWOOM!

"YEEEAHAHAHOOOO!!!" *Splash*

"Mario! You idiot!"

Finally, a voice I recognized. Ditto and I resurfaced in a pool of water. Above me, a red-head had already thrown a loop of rope around a stalactitea and was quickly scaling down the side of a cliff. It'd been some time since I;d seen her, and it was obvious that life with Wes had matured the girl from peppy sidekick to hero in her own right. Rui had outgrown the short pigtails off the side of her head for a long cut, though possibly more out of not being able to see a stylist for a few weeks, and the teenage urban dress had given way for a more practical survivalist outfit, but it was definitely her.

And then I recognized the Skarmory that darted over the side.

"Glover, what are you doing here? Long time!" Rui looked genuinely surprised as she landed on the ground.

I spat water out of my mouth. "I thought I'd drop in, or off. That's some Bagon."

The Skarmory landed and let its blonde-haired male trainer off. "Oh, him?” Wess said rather crossly. “Don't worry about him, he just tries to hard. Here, let's get you out of the water." they took my arms, Ditto bunching up on my back, and we hauled out of the water.

"So tell me, how'd you break that fall? You disappeared before I could get the climbing rope tied off and had to be falling fast."

"Ditto did. He shot back into my arms, and did a parachute impersonation. Been nice if he'd waited until we were over dry land and I could've landed on my feet, but oh well."

"Can we get you anything?"

"A nice, long sleep, something strong and alcoholy, and fire would be nice."

Rui giggled, but Wes just nodded that it would be gotten. Skarmory ran all three of us up, one at a time. Wes' let out a Tyranitar who used Rock Slide to re-cover the hole I'd made, and before long, I was being introduced.

"These are the trainers we ran into in our escape. This is Nicholas, John, Jay, Timothy, Cyndy, Nob, and you met Mario and his shiny Bagon. There are a few others around too, in different parts, listening for intruders."

I shook each hand as they were named off. "So, you all knew I was here since we got out of the water."

"Yes." Wes said solemnly. "My question, is why?"

---
"Commander Tabitha, one of the Project Regirock agents has returned."

"Really?" the now only male Magma Admin under Maximillian turned to face the junior commander, a thin man best described as a string bean with dirt brown hair. Course, around here, that could also be ash. "And has he been debriefed?"

"Of course sir, I did it myself. Odd thing though, he described a very similar shadow following the Ruine's wall as our Sentry on the North Slope did. Long tail stretched straight out, wide wings, and a fire's glow."

"A Charizard then, but why in the Desert?"

"Beats me, you don't think…?"

"No, I don't. Good way to get demoted. You've got a lot to learn Johnson. But to answer your intended question, I doubt there's a trainer stupid enough to try and take us down in a volcano."

"I don't know, I've met some stupid trainers."

"Yes Junior Commander, I have too. We hired 'em. If that's all, you're dismissed." Johnson wasn't sure if that was aimed at him or not, so he let it go, saluted his superior, and backed gracefully out of the room.

Author's Note: A little warning for you guys. In my betaing with Blaziken, he made the comment that it was confusing and that the characters were flat. Ive triad a few changes, but I'm stuck on improvements, so I'm putting this little caveat up here.

(If you have an idea on how to make this better, I'm all ears)

First thing to know is that Glover is speaking to a crowd of people. If you've ever been behind a podium, there's a lot more of them than there are of you. So it will be a bit hectic, having a bunch of people calling out ideas and suggestions. My apologies, but keep that in mind.

The other one to keep in mind is that a lot of these are filler characters. You should recognize a few names if you've played Emerald recently. But for the most part, they're all "redshirts", or filler characters.

And just to cut you off, no I'm not exactly into shipping. For those of you who haven't played Colosseum, comments are made in game about Wes and Rui being a cute couple, and since this falls both several years after Colo and in line with what Xman has done with them, they have ended up tieing the knot. So sdon't expect me to get all mushy.

That, was more than refreshing, I needed that. The pain in my head was down to a mild thumping. I stared at the backside of my eyelids, doing a slow rousing, before I remembered being in a cave in a warzone, and nearly bolted up. Sunbeam and Moonlight had fallen asleep across me, and stared sleepily at me for waking them.

"Afternoon Sleepyhead." Rui smiled her bubbly attitude while turning over some meat in the fire. Across from her sat a blonde haired lady and a man with a dark purple head. "You hungry?"

"Yes, I am." She tossed me a stick and nodded towards their makeshift icebox someone had salvaged out of a house.

I sat down about 9'oclock from them to start cooking my hunk of food.

"The others are about. We live in rotations. Wes was very good about organizing such a large group." The blonde said. It took me a moment, but it dawned on me who they were. Just add a white tuxedo, a red and black frilly dress, and...

"You know, you two look a lot like some people I know of."

The gentleman smiled. "Yes, we get that a lot. Were these people friends of yours?" I picked up his intentions, and played along. "Well they were, kind of. See, they put on dazzling performances with sleight of hand. Marvelously talented." He started smiling brighter. "Any time on my journey I'd stop and catch their show if they were close. My all time favorite was when the magician's Kirlia had just evolved. The Pokémon was still getting used to her new forme, and was a bit of a klutz, but played through extremely well. It made the show truly real."

"They sound like show people; good people."

"I had thought they were, and then one day, they up and vanished. Poof! No good-bye show, no curtain call tour, not even a final TV performance. I was so looking forward to getting to take a young girl I happen to be rather fond of to delight in the same magic I had, she'd have been old enough to truly appreciate it, and then a year short of my opportunity, the no good, worthless magician just ups and makes himself disappear."

The man across from me started to look heartbroken. "Oh dear, that was a rather cruel thing to do, taking magic out of a kid's life."

At that, Rui about fell off the stone she was using for a seat, laughing at our little skit.

The lady leaned on his arm. "Perhaps they had a good reason?"

"Perhaps, but if I ever meet that man again, I might have to give him a piece of my mind."

"Tell you what Glover, since you trekked out here just to find all of us, if I find this man, I'll be sure to send him your way. I must confess though, I’ve not seen this man for a long, long time."

His wife hugged him reassuringly. “I’m sure he’s around.”

"I’ll hold you to that promise." Timothy walked into our conversation at that point with a multitude of other trainers. "Ah! Good, you're up. I'll round up the rest of the gang."

The rest?

---
When all was done, there were easily two hundred people crammed into the cavern, and probably a dozen more still on sentry duty.

“This, is impressive.”

“Aye, that it is.” Timothy agreed. We’re from Rustboro, a few, and Fallarbor mostly. We piled into this cave out of desperation. Wes and Rui showed up shortly after, and provided quite a bit of organization, the man is quite mesmerizing, he can sure wield a crowd, whoever he is. Then he said he had to run an errand, that must have been the call he placed to you, and while they were gone we were joined by Butler and Diana, who felt much safer in numbers than alone in Forina.

“I don’t blame them.” I glanced about, everyone was anxious, some whispering, but all wanted to know what help was coming.

All eyes were on the outsider.

"So, who all is coming to save us?" Cindy, I think her name was, asked. She was sitting next to a well raised Medicham.

"I don't know yet. I'm on something of a recon."

"Is the League gearing up at least?" This came from a new trainer, one of the dragon tamers who lived down here amongst the Bagon. His kind were all leaned against a side wall just outside of the crowd.

Oh. The tricky question. "Some of them are. Officially, Kanto doesn't want to get involved. Politics you know, but as trainers, they seem to want to help."

Several dejected faces. Someone scoffed world politics; “Yeah, we know. Always ‘Hoenn’s over there, it’s just an island, they can take care of themselves, why should we be bothered with the apocalypse?’”

"What about the others?" another voice asked. This one, like the other, reverberated from a single soul amongst the populace of the cave. From precisely whom it came, I have no idea.

"Haven't spoken to them, only Lance."

More doom bringing answers.

John decided to try for something else, change the direction of the conversation. "What is this plan of yours?" My steak was done, I took a bite before answering. "Easy, make large hole on exit. I want to shatter Mauville."

Several people looked at me like I was nuts. Well, technically, I was.

"You do realize that's the single most fortified concentration camp on this entire island continent, right?" Had anyone else down here asked me that, it would have been with shock, possibly condescending, and sarcastic. Instead, the comment’s speaker was calm about it, as one might do in the war room, planning all contingencies.

"Yes Wes, I do."

"And how do you plan to pull this off?" He asked again from behind me.

"Same way you did to Snagem, give or take a few changes." The other Orre region trainer bit his lip when he realized I just outed his identity.

John stroked his chin. "Hold on, you're that Wes? No wonder you're such a charismatic leader, that everyone grafted to you."

"Yes- OW!"

Rui slapped her husband in the stomach. "You don't have to acknowledge that like a murder confession. Be proud of what you did."

Wes grumbled. "Continue Glover, before I get hit again, or get worshipped or something for a deed I did six years ago."

"Always with the modesty complex. Truthfully, this will be a large operation, I'll need outside help, your help if you'll spare it, and those inside the camp.” I saw the next question a mile away. “It's quite simple, I want to get caught. When they take my Pokémon from me, I'll have an inside man."

"Get the Pokémon loose, distract them, blow down the door, or wall if it’s handier, and you're off. Yes, that is my old escape. Not sure how you’re inside man is going to work though."

"Bingo, and you’ll see. Then we head for Slateport. I get a boat, grab as many who aren't up for the fight, and the rest of you disappear back into the woodwork in a Guerilla Warfare style until help arrives. If it all goes well, I'll hand off the info to an inbound League and they'll know what they're facing."

"So, what do we do?" Mario liked the idea of being a hero. Perhaps too well. So did his Bagon, unfortunately, both youths were unable to keep still at the prospect and were squirming in each other’s laps.

"Best case scenario, when they start shooting into the prison at us, you get them in the back."

"Tha... that's not heroic at all."

"Neither is the worst-case scenario, being ‘Dealing with Rayquaza.’” That got a fair bit of shocked looks from the crowd. “I came looking for dragon tamers because I knew you'd be able to work that out. The way I see it, Groudon is too slow to get to Mauville, and Mauville is too inland for Kyogre. Ray is their only heavy-artillery for the time." I was holding my breath that they didn’t have the Latis.

"Once we got to Slateport though," Nob spoke for everyone in the room on that once.

"Yes, you'll be cornered if you don't get out of there fast enough by Groudon. I'm not going to ask for Martyrs or Heroes, but if we can break them enough that they rely on one heavy weapon, they fall to the little cracks in their armor."

"That was Cipher's weakness. They thought their Shadow Pokémon were invincible, to the point they couldn't support the idea of anything else."

“Yep! Once you took those away from them, they were just more weak trainers.”

"To be fair, Groudon and Kyogre nearly are. But yes, you all see now the general idea behind this.

This lead to the big decision: help or stay? Glances and chattering shot around the room, all asking the same kinds of questions. "Are you going? Should I? Are we safer here? Are we safe here? Why should we help this random stranger? What if... What if...

Finally, a gentleman stood up in the back, a farmer. "Mister Glover, Ah'm goin’ with you."

"You are Jim?” One of his neighbors turned around shocked. "But this is a fool's errand."

"Is it Mitch? What if ya'll are waiting for some miracle that's standing here starin' us all in the face right now?" Farmin's about earning your rewards, not getting them handed to ya's. And if'n ya'll have forgotten that, You've forgotten where yah live."

There were murmurs. Some of agreement, others about disgrace.

"This is stupid." Another man said. This, is why I hate asking for volunteers. Wes rolled his eyes, while Rui waited for the moment they'd have to start separating masses of human from each other's throats. "They've scoured this place top to bottom and they haven't found us."

"Yet." Still another person chimed in. From the looks, he wasn't a farmer. Maybe a town merchant. "How long till they do? The next search, two more, four? They know there're people here, they just haven't found us yet."

"Look, I've got a wife and children, I can’t just be a hero."

"I can relate to that" I said under my breath. In an attempt to calm the chaos, I told the man "I understand, and that's as noble a thing to do as anything else." But it didn't work.

"So Jake's just gonna sit in a hole with his family while we rescue our homes and his, huh. Sounds about right. Too busy asking for help to actually help."

"You take those words back."

"You'll have to make me, you yellow-livered city rat." four fists flew, as only a rural bar fight could break out. Electricity sizzled through the air, and two men found themselves weakly electro-webbed to the side of the cave.

"That'll be enough of that. If you have the ability to help, then do so, If not, no man should be demeaned for knowing the limits of his confidence, even if his ability may well extend beyond there. And, thank you Ferriday, for your assistance."

'Gal, tula van.'

“Well, that works too., Glover. Not what I was planning, but that works too.”

Several caped men stepped forward smartly, but not until after being confident the large yellow spider that had appeared from the shadows wasn’t going to aim for them. "The Meteor Falls Clan of the Order of the Dragon will assist you."

"If the lizard guys are in, than we climbers are as well." Several grizzly men all took a giant stride. John and Jay looked at each other, I vaguely remembered them as a couple who’d retired into the caves. They nodded to each other, and stood up as well. One by one, others began to stand up. A full third of the underground populace, plus the trainers who were already camped here. But once again, neighbor turned on neighbor, disappointed that they didn’t stand up.

"Look, we're sorry, but we have to look out for our families; our wives and children."

“Pathetic. Hiding behind families.”

"Don't we get a say? The wives stood up and began to huddle together. Some gesturing, some pointing, chirping and cheeping like a group of Iowa biddies, until one young wife stood up and faced Wes and I.

"What about Rustboro?"

"Are you SERIOUS?" One of the townsmen asked. "Rustboro? You want to waste our surprise attack on Rustboro? That's your idiot idea?" The entire room at that point took a giant scoot away from him. Either he was blissfully unmarried, or he was soon going to be, but no one was interested in being associated with him and scooted away from the marked-for-death man.

“Rustboro seems like a nice compromise. We get out, you guys bang on their heads, be manly, or whatever.”

“There’s nothing IN Rustboro.” He defended.

“As much as I hate to agree with him,” another local joined the discussion, “he’s right. I’d hate to waste Mr. Glover’s time.”

“How is saving people a waste?” one of the ladies posed sternly.

“Saving us, isn’t. I mean the region as a whole.”

"And you actually think you can do this." By now, I was A) impressed by just how many people they’d managed to sequester away, as more and more people appeared to speak out, and B) how polarized the populace was. This man turned to the standing crowd:

"You all think you can stand up to Gods?" This got more murmurs from them. “I see a bunch of Farmers, a bunch of Merchantmen dependent on Farmers to shop from them, and a smattering of people in back of a cave who want to be strong. This isn’t a Nincada plague, nor do we have some mad scientist’s Machamp holed up in our Windmill.”

Man, I wanted to wring his neck out. With each sentence another person developed a look of horror and sat back down.

"So, how about it? Are a bunch of fork shovers going to take fate into their own hand? Will they stand up to the might of a team who tamed the gods? And they think they can survive without being crushed by earth wind or sea?"

I leaned over to Wes and whispered: "Who's this guy?"

"Mayor, I think."

"What's our track record with pessimistic mayors?" Wes's eyebrows twitched. Evice had left many people in Orre gravely untrusting of politics; it was one reason why a Pokémon League couldn't take hold.

I couldn't risk it, and something didn’t feel right in his performance. I nodded to Sunbeam, and strolled carefully through the crowd of standing and sitting people. "Excuse me, sir. You're absolutely right in your principals, but I can't help but wonder what's brought on this sudden dark realization and morbid intrigue. What's your name?"

"Muh, Mark, sir. Is it getting warm in here?"

"No, it must be you. Are you seriously that disinterested in Hoenn being free?"

"What? uh, of course not. Mr. Glover, I simply wish, wish to not see my friends harmed. Excuse me, I'm feeling weak." At that, I took his hand, and held his forehead.

"Wha what are you doing?"

"Checking you over. Yes, there's definitely a fever. But what’s this on my hand? Makeup?" I reached for his scalp. His face was sweating profusely, but the top of his head was dry. Dry and, rubbery. I grabbed hold of a tuft, and yanked.

"YOWW!!" There was a ripping sound, as latex body glue pulled purple hair. "Brodie." Through the Magma's attempts to not convulse, a devillish smile formed on the spy’s face.

"We knew you were hiding, figured, *urp* it would be better to split you *urp* up, force you all into open territory. Clever Glover, most people don't see through the disguise."

"I didn't. I saw through the words. Now, there should be..." At that point, a purple blob shot out of his backpack like a brass knuckle into my jaw so hard it closed my mouth and forced me to bite my tongue, drawing blood. I pitched, and turned back. Wes drew a Pokéball, as did several locals. Two Umbreon, Wes's and Moonlight, pounced the gelatinous Pokémon while Espeon cranked up the hold she had on Brodie's hypothalamus, squeezing it like a stress-ball with her mind. Ferriday tied up the shivering man, and strung him to a stone pillar.

“Yeah, that.” Holding a sore jaw, though fortunately his Ditto couldn't amass enough density to break anything, I tried to bring the room to a dull roar. Sunbeam waited a moment after he was secured before she let his body resume normal control. He coughed, shook a bit, and tried vainly to withstand his body's desire to sleep off what it thought was a flu bug.

"You see? Magma was afraid to come in here! We're safe inside."

"No.” Wes shook his head. "They sent a spy in to test the area, but they know where you are now. If anything, this just proves that your position is compromised."

I spat blood. "He's right. We have to move, we have to risk stepping out of here. We'll move for Rustboro first. Does anyone have a Water type?"

A lot of hands went up. "How about that's strong enough to pull a ship?" All the hands went down. Apparently, there were plenty of Drizzle Politoed for watering the crops, but nothing like, say a Feraligatr or Swampert.

"What about Kyte?"

"What about him Rui?"

"Wes and I have the Mantine from the first Cipher incident still. He’s wicked fast Glover. What if we could get someone to a ship?"

"Then we have to get someone onboard... hmm..." I turned to Gizmo, my own Ditto. "We'll need a fast way out, for, maybe four people." Ditto chirped excitedly, but Rui grunted.

“No, no. Gizmo should rest, he’s obviously gotten you here, and has to still be sore.”

The ball of playdough pouted so hard I thought his body cracked.

“We can do it, Rui.”

“No, you’ll need someone to get you out there, and someone to watch your back. Wes’ll be needed here, so I’ll do it.”

I looked over at her husband, who was obviously trying to come up with a million ways he wasn’t letting that happen.

“Rui…”

“I’m not backing down, I’ll run Glover out there. Be a wingmate if nothing else.”

I looked at Ditto once more, who was over shadow-boxing, still trying to convince her he was strong enough to do it.

We both looked at Wes for different reasons. His lip curled, he bit it, then put his hand to his forehead. “There’s no choice. I want to say no, but Politoed aren’t going to do you any favors, and she’s right.”

“Fine. But Gizmo, we’ll need something faster than a submarine to get us out of there.” At this, his eyes lit up. He loved getting to try new shapes. Taking over one of the few wide spots in the cavern, a floor appeared. Then four seats, and a roll cage. He began experimenting next with wings, rocket pods, various other things. He tried a two by two configuration, a bobsled row style, and a few other things to distribute weight.

"What do we do about Brodie?"

"That's easy." I pulled out a radio from my pocket, and walked over to him. "Here, talk into this."

"And say what? Tell my team that you're all making a move in the other direction towards the old Fallarbor Docks perhaps? Like Hell."

"Thanks, that will do nicely." He was concerned and not sure how he’d been duped, until the radio turned orange. The frequency dial spread wide and into a curl, below two nobs that flattened into eyes. Moto twisted his words around and broadcast a warning to Team Magma, and Aqua to be on the lookout for a smuggler's ship coming to get refugees from the dock north of Fallarbor.

"Where's a good place to get outside?" I asked a local.

"Why?"

"I want to make sure there's a ship in Rustboro." Clearly, after Brodie, some people were distrusting of some new guy who wandered into their cave. I needed the spot in my active roster, so I recalled Ferriday. By double-clicking the front buttons simultaneously, Ferriday's ball shrank tight, moved virtually to the 7th spot, and Ace took the 6th spot. Truthfully, I could probably qualify for a mobile waiver and up the cap on useable Pokémon, but I always felt that was cheating, and it was, and so adopted the physical lockout Amanita had created for the Unovan storage system after weather patterns had disrupted a teleportation of a trainer’s newly caught Pokémon.

"Who's in there?"

"A Pokémon of mine. He's rather fond of staying in his Pokéball."

"Timid?"

"No, paranoid. He had this feeling for a while everyone was out to get him. The problem was, he was right. They were." That was only half true, but it sufficed. They led me to a secret entrance. I released Ace, pointed him to Rustboro, and stretched. Half-dozen jaws hit the ground when the umber and turquoise Pokémon shot off the ledge; they’d never seen a Pokémon like him before.

When he returned a half an hour later, he confirmed that there indeed was a large enough boat. By then, I'd found someone who was familiar enough with ships that he could point the bow and head straight for anywhere but here.

---
I stood on the ledge with Nob and Rui. Behind us in the cave were those of us heading for safety, so I hoped. Wes and Butler had just started south, assisted by all of the trainers from in and around Meteor Falls, save Nob who was helping me. They'd use the mountain to cross into Rusturf, and then duck into Forina for cover until sun-down the next day. The latter was the only area of Hoenn not containing any humans at all, the strength of the local Pokémon, no doubt assisted by the energy of the Jirachi that rested there had been able to repeal the combined grunt forces, or had so far. Butler had hoped that he could persuade the Pokémon keeping its guard to not blast his band of refugees.

The sun had set an hour ago, but the heat was still lingering. It'd be a hard run for everyone involved.

One of the men accompanying their families emerged from the cave. "We're all set."

"Excellent." A Magnezone of mine called Dreadnaught floated up over the secret entrance we were using, guarding as a line of people poured out. We were taking more than I had wanted too, not just because it meant fewer bodies for liberating Mauville, but also because sneaking through a forest with two hundred people, even at such a remote part of the region wasn’t an easy feat. Every little noise breeds paranoia that they’ve been spotted, some light or reflection, or just plain old being scared. In the movies, it’s a sneeze or a crying child that alerts the bad guy, but I always find it remarkable how innocently wise children can be. Often times, such as here, it’s not the children, even the babies that make the noise, they acutely are aware of the gravity, even if death and evil is an unknown thing to them, it’s the adults who should know better and don’t that make the most noise.

I said a few more silent prayers to whichever deities were interested in not killing, drowning, or baking us that we might rach the edge safely. From his Pokéball, Ace scanned the horizons for bio signatures, reporting dismally that there was nothing out there at all. Sunbeam and Moonlight moved silently amongst us and around the underbrush as back-up searchers and herders for the stragglers. The latter was much better suited to night ops through his Umbreon genes, but their cat-like instincts were never-the-less working wonderfully. Before long, Nob had was down to the edge of the forest. It really wasn’t that far, as Meteor Falls was fairly attached to the shelf around that side of the Hoenn region anyway. He took my two Eeveelutions and Ace’s ball for protection. I doubted Ace would be much help to him battling, but the telepathic virus Pokémon introduced himself willingly enough to the black belt. I slipped into the water, followed by Wes' girl. She released a strong, and very large Mantine with two harnesses clipped around it. It clearly didn’t know what to think of its new passenger after having been around her and its trainer Wes for so long, but trusted her enough that it didn’t mind.

Soon, we were both strapped in and had our breathing filters on. With an incredible burst of speed, the Mantine took off like a torpedo towards Rustboro Harbor.

---
"What the?"A guard in a blue bandanna had been almost asleep. The combined forces had intimidated Hoenn to the point that no one dared try anything, and in all the boredom he had fast approached dreamland, only to be awakened by the sound of a ship-based diesel engine starting to life. "AQUAS! SOMEONE'S HYJACKING ONE OF OUR SHIPS!" he shouted from his watch tower, blinked, then remembered to use the intercom to tell his teammates what a lot of them had rapidly pieced together on their own. The fishing vessel backed ominously away from the deck as several Aqua sailors ran to jump on. They found themselves swatted back by an unmanned crane boom, normally used to haul large fishing cages off the bottom of the sea. A few managed to drop and roll onto the deck of the ship, and burst into the bridge to find it completely empty. On the stern, Ditto assisted as I climbed up the hull, then winched our taxi-girl up onto the deck. We then followed the Aquas into the ship unseen, and took them by surprise on the Bridge. I wish I could say I did the majority of the work, but truthfully, being attacked by a ship had a bigger toll on them than my hands or the Flying Fist of Living Rubber. They were tossed into the bay, and my Rotom sailed the possessed fishing boat out a ways before turning North.

We had another problem though. Moto felt them, through their Dark type natures. A school of Sharpedo were following us, and matching the ship’s speed easily. Before anyone could utter reason, Rui went to play hero and lept off the back of the ship, calling Mantine out in the process. I looked at Ditto, who was sitting on the dash, told Rotom to keep heading for the shore, and we followed the mad girl off the side.

Did I mention that these Sharpedo were fast? One shot past Ditto and I before any of the combatants had a chance to add up our presence, and in the glancing blow I got a chance to feel the scales.

They were smooth. Not a jagged point to be felt.

Rui and Mantine were going at five of them, trading Water Pulses and avoiding their still sharp teeth as best they could. Several more were circling back around to Ditto and I. The amorphous partner balled up around me, making a batheshpere that proved too much to chew and using a Bullet-Seed inspired gun to put them away. In the clear-top bubble canopy, I spotted two shadows below us, long, and showing no interest in the battle, while trying to send signals to the Sharpedo.

I waved frantically at Rui to get her attention, but she was having problems. A Quilfish had joined the fight now, whom I had forgotten about them Snagging so many years ago, and it was having some luck t looking tasty enough to get into a Sharpedo’s mouth before puffing up massively, but it was still an out-numbered and outgunned fight.

Ditto let me out and opened fire with Bullet Seed from a gun barrel as I swam behind and began boxing Sharpedo in the sides of the head. Trying to go for the snout was too tricky from behind them with open mouths flailing, but my distraction and Ditto’s gave Rui the chance to do what I could not. Stunned and now confused by having their nerve centers boxed, we left them to fighting themselves and went after the Handlers.

Three guys, carrying pressurized underwater guns were commanding the eighteen Sharpedo, of which nine were left. Two continued after the ship, hoping not so much to stop it as they were to ambush it when loading, as the vessel chosen was one of the many now re-inforced to Sharpedo’s bite pressure and not sinkable by their submersible team.

Mantine Supersonic’d the pilots, giving he and Rui enough time to tackle man and machine. Mantine wrapped the motorized swim unit in his wings and set to crushing it while Rui and the Aqua tussled under the water, she went for his rebreather, throwing herself around his arms so he couldn’t do the same, and left him the choice of drowning or fleeing.

Rotom began turning the rudder inward, we were getting too close to shore. Ditto Pulsed the sea around us, then tried a few Supersonics on the Sharpedo, though to little effect. I saw no other choice, Ditto changed around to a leaner underwater scooter, and we raced ahead to Moto. I rapped on his hull, and he let them have it. From the Ship’s propeller, a mass of Muddy up-churned Water swamped back at the Sharpedo and their lone shepherd.

He then depth charged them with another Water Pulse, and began docking as quickly and as best he could with the fishing vessel on the still natural shore.

Rui and I, tired, sore, and soaked to the bone trudged out of the water like sea-monsters. I could feel Wes glaring from what I hoped was many miles away by now. Seeing us out, Nob rounded the others up and they began shoving people up the gangplank as one might drive Cattle onto a train or a truck. Which, come to think of it, is probably where they learned to do that, being a farm community. Up top, a long metal line tossed over the side. I grabbed it and tied it off. Once the ship was loaded and out to sea in a straight manner, Rotom passed steering off to someone who knew nothing about captaining Krabbying Vessels, but did know boats and the Sea and could keep the bow pointed west well enough. Rotom raced down the metal line and gave a flash signal that it could be let go from the ship. I couldn’t help but watch and worry about them. Any luck, they’d sail into safe country, maybe Undella or Lacunosa, or if they drifted too far north, Sunnyshore.

"We must get going, Glover."
"Yes, yes Ace." I watched the ship sail into the moonlight a little longer, while Ditto took his forme. He'd decided on a bobsled shape, with three rocket engines and lifter pads on the undercarriage, much like the Zoomer bikes back in the Orre region. Ace had offered to pull us, and I was afraid he’d be too sore himself, but Gizmo needed the rest, so I let Ace worry about Forward propulsion while Ditto meditated on his current forme.

Great chapter I didn't notice any spelling errors this time. I have an idea maybe you could "borrow" the coffee addicted Yanma of Wes's from the Retelling of Pokemon Colisuem also I think your characters are ok.

My Black Friend Code is 2494-8412-9545 and my name on Black is Trysten.
This is my badge for the NCTH to earn it you have to challenge the League and defeat me in a battle. Credit goes to Glover for the badge.
And here's the link to my fic http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...irth-of-a-Hero

Great chapter I didn't notice any spelling errors this time. I have an idea maybe you could "borrow" the coffee addicted Yanma of Wes's from the Retelling of Pokemon Colisuem also I think your characters are ok.

That's a possibility, I suppose. I do't want to blatently rip B&B'a characters or stories, and if you look at the beginning of Turns, about the Pyrite Chapters, I mention that Wes left Feraligatr to build up a firemen's defense corps. in Pyrite.

"Up here, where the river splits" Nob pointed. We’d followed desecrated tree-line the whole way in, scorched bark and burnt foliage had replaced lush forest. Even as far west as we were at the Falls, Gizmo and I felt the heat rise with the sun and shuddered at the thought of how hot it must get at the base of the volcano. I recalled Ace at that point. Ditto flashed a light on the dash and banked in low on impulse power. Rui trilled like a Swablu in some strange method of communication.

A few moments later, a Skarmory's call answered back. I imagine Wes got ribbed quite heartily for that. Two Flygon burst out of the valley, and flanked us. These were strong creatures, their thick hides carrying burn scars. Nothing like an escort from the local Air Force to make you feel welcome, but they must’ve trusted Butler or else we’d have been shot down already.

And probably have never seen them coming.

They led us into a cavern, where we could escape the soon to be rising sun. By my watch, we only had a few hours left. This was a shadowed place, of a lot of trees and plenty of tunnels, but I had no interest in being caught in the sun, or anywhere close to it. Forina was after all still at the base of the volcano, and tucked in behind Lavaridge. We'd have to be careful here.

---

"SCOUR THIS PLACE! TEAR THIS PLACE APART! JUST FIND HIM!

"Thank you, Moto, for alerting us."

We sat around a large stone heated by a Tamer's Salamence.

"That means they’re in Meteor Falls already." Mario looked solemn.

"Most likely, they'll be on us tomorrow night when they’re done in Meteor Falls. They'll probably cut through the Volcano, so we'd best be as close to the exit as we can be.”

"Just where are we going to hide in when we leave here?"

In response, I unrolled a geographical map of Hoenn. "Here, most probably John. There's a little bluff northwest of Mauville, you can stay safely in its shadow, but if my memory serves me, there should be something of a lean-to type cave at the bottom of it. If Rayquaza comes, it should give you a better firing range on top, and Air Lock should chase away the ambient heat and Sun, and it’s close enough you can jump when the activity starts."

"Good. Get some sleep then, I'll keep watch, if they do know some of the tunnels."

There was a general agreement, a general rationalization of who would take what shift. By now, it had become an entire sleep pattern.

"Wes, may I speak to you a moment?"

"Of course Glover."

I lead him over into a bend in the cavern. "First off, my apologies for butting into your little operation."

"Well, it's not really mine, The locals had done the majority of the organizing. Nor are you butting in."

"You just pulled all the pieces together. I've seen how they respect you, those glances to you make sure I was honest."

"Well, perhaps. But what did you wish to speak of?"

"Just that, well, when I pull out of here, there's going to need you to be a leader. And I'm terribly sorry to put you in that spot, but I foresee them looking to you even more now than they already are. And if all goes well, there will be the Mauville refugees as well."

"Yes, I've already seen this coming. I have since you mentioned "taking the refugees away" to the group."

"You seem to be the only one who's made that connection."

"Yes and after that little rabble-rouse, they won't take kindly to you exiting, either."

"I'm aware, Wes, I'm aware. But I can't stick around. You know that. I'm here to get things moving, make an entryway, and stir the pot. I’ve have other obligations though, obligations that can’t stand to be losing a parent at this age."

"And you do that well, Glover." he thought for a moment. "I don't want to be in the limelight, but confound it, I just can't see any way around it. We could'a used Kyte and just booked, but Rui and I aren't ones to up and leave our homes without a fight. I just didn't know what to do, so I headed into the caves. I imagine we'll be saving the island, then be forced to run from the cameras. Rui's been wanting to find a Zorua, and I figure it'll be a nice anniversary trip if we go to Unova anyway, so I might do that."

"Good for you man, be sure to stop in on your way through or back, I'm sure everyone would love to see you."

"We'll see, Glover, we'll see. Gotta get this mess sorted first. I appreciate you thinking of me, but it's just something I have to face, the world just isn't gonna leave me alone. Best I get some sleep then, so I can relieve you later."

"Good night then, friend."

I was thankful that there was no excitement. About Nine, Butler came to me to take over so I might rest and get deeper in the shade. Dreadnaught had divided up his Tri-Attack and focused the ice side of it to freeze over a few stalagmites. Regrettably, the cave system wasn’t as sealed as Meteor Falls was, and it was quite a bit warmer in here when the sun came up.

“Beautiful country, isn’t it? You should have seen this place before. So vibrant and alive. Forina’s the heart of the Hoenn region, you know.”

“I’ve heard the stories, that a Jirachi lives here, and funnels the energy of a passing comet into the ground.”

“I’ve seen it, Glover. And then the volcanic tracts through the island carry the nutrients outward through the region. But here, the heat and power from the Volcano, the Millennium energy, this is where it really is. Or was. Then Diana and I woke up in our cabin to a thumping noise. Those two Flygon that brought you in were heading up the evacuations and had thought to come and get us. It was 120 degrees in our cabin, and it was only eight thirty.”

He paused for a moment, surveying what we could see. We were tucked in a shadow of the cave, but still somewhat visible to the outer world.

“Poor Forina, this place was full of Grass types. I’d never seen anything like it, Chlorophyll and Solar Power Pokémon that were burning them up. I used to study Groudon, before Magma had been more than an underground group. Never had I imagined that Drought could be this powerful until I heard that cry and saw all this. Nothing we’d researched, the Groudon our drones had observed deep in the Earth’s core had never done anything like this, but this is the heart of the Hoenn region, I guess.

“Or something.” I told him. “But something isn’t right here. I heard what I believe to have been Groudon, and it wasn’t right.”

“Strained? Like a bunch of tortured voices all crying out at once?”

“That would be it. I don’t recall Groudon sounding like that. I have to wonder if there’s some kind of experimentation there.”

“Genetics?”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“Where would Magma have gotten that kind of research? I-“ He thought about his next confession for a moment. “I was their genetics R&D. After my experiments failed, they told me to stop wasting their time, that they’d just go catch a Groudon themselves, the old fashioned way. Magma doesn’t have that kind of scientific basis, and I don’t know where they could’ve found a rent-a-lab.”

“Who knows, Butler. It may be nothing, too. Or for all we know, there’s some kind of magnifier up there, or it’s because it’s sitting in the heart of the Hoenn region.”

“Perhaps. At this point, I just want it to make its final act and disappear. You should consider an intermission for a while, too. Go and take a rest, you’ve done quite a bit already.”

---
Nothing came. No one in their right mind was going to challenge us in the broad daylight, and Magma hadn't reached us by cave. Soon as night fell, we were all itching to put more room behind us. Rotom was getting periodic beeps, but radio chatter had gone eerily silent.

Truthfully, we didn't make the time I wanted. We had to move through underbrush for the last half of the leg, and we were far closer to the main roads than I wanted to be. At the northern edge of the former Daycare propterty, I bid the group ado. It would be time for my move.

Ditto and I sailed across the overgrowth that used to be a playground. it had been smooth sailing, on our own we could make up a fair bit of time, until Ace tipped me off to two life signs up in a tree over us.

I spotted a light move, it was a flame.

"Slant our wing Gizmo to the right on my mark, now!"

As he did, a blaze kick slid down our top like a slide. A Blaziken landed in the grass, disoriented, but ready to turn and attack again. Then came the second life sign. Ditto rolled over completely on his back this time this time, and banked into the trees collapsing his wing. I caught a human female, in plain clothes, preparing to jump us herself. Ditto compacted completely onto my back, and three of us dropped into the tall grass. That Blaziken from before came running to protect its trainer, but Dreadnaught appeared in a light and held it at bay with a Tri-Attack.

My prisoner squirmed. Self Defense Training put my arm around her small torso, pinning both arms in the process. I stepped my leg in between hers, making a heel stomp hard for her and giving me more leverage to shift her balance over my knee should she try.

"Let go of me!"

"Easy, easy. You can surrender, I’m not the bad guy."

I bit into the back of her hoodie, and pulled it down. A large mass of red hair burst from its confines. Another flash of light, and an Espeon sat in front of the unknown assailant. She made mental contact, and when the girl felt suitably weak, I relaxed my grip. Her scalp was warm, and showing signs of actually being hers; I waved Sunbeam off and offered some medicine.

"Murderer!" She spat, trying to find her equilibrium after collapsing to the ground.

"That's a new one. Been called a lot of things though."

"You, you try to kill me with your Espeon? Was Regirock too much for you to use on me?"

"Regirock?"

"I saw you! I was there! It slaughtered the entire regiment! Then you left, it followed you, you backed it off, with, with some magic words and some such. They may have been Magmas, but those were still people! Friends! I knew some of them! Swore to protect them!" She was upset and crying; in her fit of rage she sprang up to push me back, but I had just enough time to catch her wrists and deflect the attack.

"Now hold on. If they were digging for it, how'd I catch it? That was their doing. I was there too you know, hiding. "

"That Shadow! And I saw it too. Then you mounted a, a, Oh I don't know what Pokémon it was, further down the desert."

"An Ace. I call it an Ace. He’s got a species name, of course, but he prefers his name. By the way, what do I call you, since you're obviously alone?"

The prisoner looked at me in disbelief. "You don't know?"

"Nope."

"You don't know Flannery?" She added in a mock tone, "the Heretic? How about Traitor?"

"Doesn't ring any bells."

"What about Lavaridge Gym Leader?"

I laughed. "You? Too young. Apparently misguided as well."

She began staring me down. The girl wasn't kidding apparently, and took her job seriously. So I bothered to ask, “what happened to Mr. Moore?"

"My Grandad, er, retired." There was something else there, unsaid.

"And now you're what? Dashing about the countryside? I bet he loves his Grand-daughter for that one. I don’t even know if I can trust you."

"Hey! Now that's not fair! Just what do you think you’re doing then? And in a blue coat!"

"As I said, misguided." I tapped one of the small logos adorning where the right shoulder cover met the body of my blue jacket. A silver clasp, with a ruby-inset with a golden PL League logo overlaid on it.

"What are you, oh."

"Yes."

"Are you then,"

"From the league? Call me a front-runner, but not exactly. So now that we have our introductions done, what’s this then about ‘Heretic’?”

"Magma’s got the media under their thumb, that’s what. They’re claiming I sided the town with them, forced everyone into a trap.”

“And, where did they get that kind of propaganda from then?” She blushed. I knew from facing down Orre’s own crime team, these kinds of allegations don’t just appear, or stick, without something real or fabricated underneath them.

“Lavaridge depends on that volcano! You don't get it, no one does. But whatever that monster they've created does impacts the town, our power, our commercialism, all of it. I signed that Devil's Deal to protect the town, and no one will believe that!"She was in tears again. Not so much out of anger, but heartbreak, that mixture of the two with betrayal of trust.

"And I should buy that?"

"No, since no one else does.” She snapped at me, “At this point, if I'm the laughing stock of the Hoenn region for trying to protect my friends, my home, then so be it! But nobody cares about Lavaridge, or just what exactly is in that volcano except me, and they call ME the traitor!"

I thought for a very short second, I’d been a bit crass with her, but it all made sense at least, so I opted to play a new strategy. "Alright, then tell me."

She looked at me incredulous. "You want to know?"

"That’s why I’m here." I told her sincerely.

"Better than that, I have pictures." She pulled out a phone. The monster she showed me was in fact a Groudon, but it was downright huge. a five story Groudon, or so it appeared against the Grunts around it in the depths of the volcano was just unnatural, they were supposed to be between twelve and sixteen feet. I snatched her phone, copied them to mine, care of a Rotom so they couldn’t be peeped on by anyone who owned the phone system, and gave hers back.

“All of their legendaries are of that size frame. I’ve heard something about “reviving a fossil”. I know for a fact that that Rayquaza is just big from being so old, I’ve seen it before. It usually rested on Sky Pillar, I think age is getting to it.”

“Weather patterns say it’s not there now. Still, that might be something that helps us.”

I began stroking my forehead, and looked over to Sunbeam. The Espeon looked up from licking her paws and nodded to me: Flannery was alright. I scribbled out a note on my last copy of a Hoenn map. “On this bluff, there should be a cluster of trainers. Find the one with the sandy blonde hair. Introduce yourself, tell him I sent you, and give him your story If anyone gives you grief, be sure to tell him, and we’ll deal with it. Got that?”

“Sure, but aren’t you coming? You could sort it out for me.” She muttered something about no one trusting her anymore only half-aloud.

“Can’t. I’ve got business in Mauville.”

“Oh, alri- MAUVILLE! What are you, insane?! That’s worse than walking into Lavaridge! Do you know what they’ve got there!? It’s a prison, it’s their central command base! It’s right in the middle of the region, where everything has to go through!”

“And you think a small group on a bluff and one guy walking up to the front door is going to be enough to break them out?”

“Nope.”

“So, you’re what then? Just gonna march in there, arm the prisoners, and lead a rebellion?”

“Well, I plan to be escorted in by several Magma guards.”

“I withdraw my earlier question, you are, for a fact, insane.”

“Yep. Bluff’s that a way, I’ve gotta scoot.”

Time was getting short, another sunrise would be coming, as they tend to do. Before Flannery could protest, I withdrew Dreadnaught and had Ditto unfurl again, leaving her alone in an overgrown playground to do with the information on new allies as she pleased. I only hoped it would be the right decision, but she seemed like a smart girl who was only looking for the Right in all the Wrong; and redemption.

Minutes were all that stood between me and the first real phase of my operation.

Hey great chapter I have a feeling that something big is going down in the next chapter.

My Black Friend Code is 2494-8412-9545 and my name on Black is Trysten.
This is my badge for the NCTH to earn it you have to challenge the League and defeat me in a battle. Credit goes to Glover for the badge.
And here's the link to my fic http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...irth-of-a-Hero

Hello interested readership, I come bearing good news and better news. The good news, I've decided to break CH9 and 10 up, so there's now fourteen chapters including the epilogue (which tails into Galactic Files. You're welcome, Blazi)

The better news? I'm going to up posting frequency to Monday and Thursday, seeing as how things are done, and you all seem to be fairly on the ball when it comes to repsponding. This way, I can get ti done, finished, make my mark on the fiction, and get back to World Turns full time. Four day intervals should be enough time, but if it's not, I'll back off then.

Hello interested readership, I come bearing good news and better news. The good news, I've decided to break CH9 and 10 up, so there's now fourteen chapters including the epilogue (which tails into Galactic Files. You're welcome, Blazi)

The better news? I'm going to up posting frequency to Monday and Thursday, seeing as how things are done, and you all seem to be fairly on the ball when it comes to repsponding. This way, I can get ti done, finished, make my mark on the fiction, and get back to World Turns full time. Four day intervals should be enough time, but if it's not, I'll back off then.

Cool. I guess I never gave a great reason for Glover to be in Sinnoh for that... I'll let you handle the rest of that!

I've gotten into IV Breeding. I'll breed any Pokemon that can, just ask and I'll see what I can do!

What happened after Ruby and Sapphire? This is my interpretation. Click the banner to read!
Latest: Chapter 5: Power Plant Problems
The banner was made by Brutaka

A wide shadow sailed over the wall built around Mauville. In the slight drizzle, the magma guards had stayed in the towers spaced periodically along the line. They ran out to meet the strange shape, which circled over the fort several times, before banking away and towards Lilycove.

River Patrol east of town was immediately alerted, and as soon as the figure was in their sights, they opened fire on the winged shape. It fell to the bushes, and was immediately met with a beach storming team of Aquas. They grabbed the pilot by the arms, knocked him out with a Shroomish to the face, and drug him into the prison, giving little thought to the absence of what he was flaying in the first place.

The combined Magma and Aqua team was using the New Mauville Power Plant as a base of operations. Some of the prisoners were used to keep power going, while others were assigned to weapons and vehicular repairs, or building a larger prison.

Not knowing any better, the grunts followed complete procedure. They stripped him of his Pokémon, his clothes, installed him into a prison jumpsuit in a lovely Jigglypuff Pink, and tossed his still comatose form into a prison bunk. Strangely, they could not find a trainer card, and thought that odd. The coat looked impressive, and so set his Pokémon aside in case a boss wanted them, but beyond that, did nothing special.

---'You alright Glover?'

"Yes, Ace, I'm fine. How long?"

'Nine hours. We're fine on time, but you might still want to hurry.'

"I understand." Groggily, I got up and began studying my bunkmates.

"You there! New guy!" A Magma guy bellowed. "You're assigned to the digging construction crew. If you don't want to be sleeping with five guys in your bed, you best do a good job."

I was still too hung over from the Spore-to-the-mouth to argue, and sleep-walked where I was informed to be.

"Have you made contact..."

'With Moto? Sure have, he’s ready when we are.'

"Good, I'll take care of my end, you let me know when your hand is forced."

'Of course. And thank you, for letting me partake.'

As I trudged along the aisles, I began taking notes of my prisoners. Children forced to haul water, bikers, dudes with hair down to their shoulders, probably Rockers; there was an overall wide array of people here.

I was handed a Digger Drill, one of the old hand-crank versions that resembled an egg-beater, and pointed to a wall. Six hours, something resembling a sandwich and a canteen of mostly clear water, and eighteen drills later, -- I won’t even bother counting the pile of broken, mangled bits-- and I successfully had a six foot tall, half-inch deep, human shaped dent. I felt bad, some poor schmuck probably had a raging fire going, and was melting down my mangled bit heads and was forced to turn them into new bits, brought to me or somebody by some sunny-faced eight year old who should be dancing down a hallway swinging a lunch pail, not a pail of recycled metal things they think are going to get through bedrock.

Truthfully, I can't fault the Teams for how well they've orchestrated. Lunch, at least for those of us in the caves, is handled on-site. That is, there's no mass communion during Lunch for orchestrating, say, a mass jailbreak. Not only that, it's all underground. At least here, anyway. As it stands, satellites are down and the Space Station isn't due to pass over Hoenn for some time, but should anyone fly over Mauville, they'd see a wall around the city but nothing that screams "Internment Camp" like those fictional war movies they make about places called America and Germany.

In fact, the only time I saw anybody outside of the work zone, and even then they had us spaced far enough out that we weren't really able to talk, was going to bed. By that time though, sleep was a very heavily wanted thing.

I recognized my bunkmate as he climbed into bed. He had been with the Trick Master, though he'd stayed back when I had crashed their party. Immediately, guilt struck me like a knife.

"When did they get you?" I asked quietly, somewhat sounding innocent and conversationalist.

The green-haired rolled over onto his side. "Three days after you left."

"Did I cause it?"

There was a sigh, one that told me he just wanted sleep. "No, or at the very least, they were due to sweep the island anyway." I had another question, but z's began floating out of the top bunk, so I held my tongue.

---
From their respective perches, Ace and Moto were keeping tabs on the entirety of the Prison. The latter was well aware of the presence of Porygon and had to watch every electrical connection he jumped through, the former was using his genetic and telepathic abilities. There was a damper on the Pokéballs Holding rooms that both limited psychics and kept the balls from freely opening, and Ace was one of the few who could actually get his mind out of the room. At first, he passed the time checking up on trainers for the other Pokémon. He could reach their minds, and he could reach Moto's though his looked like a giant video game involving epic movie style explosions and not much else, but then he found himself boxed into a sad corner. How do you tell a Marshstomp that you can't find its boy's mind; that your native draw is telling you to look not in the room of the living, but in the pit of genetic markers outside the prison? After a while, the Baysplosions began to be more appealing, even to the serious-minded Ace, so he’d find reasons to check up on the Rotom and the movie like thoughts in the Plasma Ghost’s head. Arceus knows that sleep wasn’t a welcoming savior for Ace, not since the Experiments on him had he gotten a truly restful night, even in the warm and enticing Heal Ball.

---
I was wrong in my earlier notation. Upon awaking at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, Magma assigned me to a more crowded room. Perhaps they felt this would be a cavern, maybe another bunk room, and that it needed the extra hands. It gave me the answer I was looking for though when I came here; everyone was crowding to the Biker looking guys.

Which made sense. When in a Prison, look for the gang. As Morning turned to afternoon, one of them had drilled his way across the wall to me.

"New guy."

"Biker dude."

"New Guy's ballsy. Like that. Lissen'. There's a system round these parts. What are you here for?"

"Pardon?"

“Is' like this: There are inmates and there are prisoners. A prisoner has a certain code. And he knows to show a certain respect. An inmate, on the other hand, pulls the pin on his fellow man. Does the guards' work for them... brings shame... to the game. So, which are you gonna be?"

"O-ho. New guy has plan. My advice? Can it. Everyone comes in with plans of escape."

"That's great, but does everyone come in here," I moved closer so the drilling masked better, "with two insiders?"

---
"Commander Amber". A lab researcher burst into a room, addressing a blonde-haired man in Aqua uniform. "Forgive my non-protocol barging in, but I simply must speak to you. I saw a man here last night, your newest prisoner."

"What about him?"

"He's a threat. I've seen him before. My employers were dealt with in part by him, we had a Pokémon we were trying to modify, that we were using as a basis for our genetic research. He snagged it from us, and has used it since. If he still has it, it could be very powerful indeed."

"Alright. You don't need me to go get it, just bring it back here."

"As you command."

Amber motioned to his guards to follow the R&D man. They went to Holding Room C, where Glover's Pokémon were yet to be processed. The attendant pointed to the bottom of a rack, and immediately Hospel began snatching up Pokéballs.

Espeon he scanned a Luxury ball and was given said result.

Umbreon the second black and gold ball read.

Galvantula then

Unoccupied Hospel tried it again.

Unoccupied. it told him again. He buried his brow and turned to the attendent. Do you see this?" He asked her as he turned the screen of the scanner. "Do you know what that means?"

"It's empty?"

He sighed, then smacked her with the Premier Ball in his hand. "It means, THERE'S A LOOSE POKEMON THAT SHOULD BE IN THIS BALL!" She cowered, at first, Hospel thought it was because of his anger. But then his ears picked up on a rattling sound. He spun, and saw a pink and cream blurr launch itself from the rack. It went straight for his jaw with all the force of a tennis pitching machine turned on high and forced him to bite his tongue, but it missed its true mark. From his juggler vein, it ricocheted off the edge of a shelf, veered right, shattered a vase, and finally drilled itself button first into a guard's temple.

---
I'd gotten to know the Biker as well as I could. His name was Michelangelo, leader of Doom Fang.

"Listen," I had told him. "There will be a commotion. That's not the time to act. When we have our Pokémon, is not the time to act either." He didn't think I could actually pull of getting our Pokémon, from the look he shot me while changing bits. "You must make sure you keep the populace in control. I know you have them wrapped around your thumb, judging by the pile of food they gave you.

"Yous a smauht guy. Bein' smauht like that could get one killed."

"That which does not kill you..."

"Best be dead ‘fore it gets the chance."

"That.... wasn't where I was going with that, but that works too."

"Showtime Glover."

"There's the sign."

"What sign?"

"Nothing, just make sure the place is ready."

"Ready for what?"

A speaker squawked, and a voice said calmly,

All available Grunts, please report to Pokémon Holding Room C.

Then, in more of a panic,

NOW!

Michelangelo blinked. For a moment, someone, no, an outsider, knew more about what was going on in his world than he did. Since the takeover, the Doom Fang had become sort of a "Lesser Evil" to the people of Mauville, and later the others they brought in. He'd worked hard to rule the prison.

"No." He told himself softly, they’re on my turf, this is the better option. He dropped a bit and summoned one of the children to pick it up for him, gave them a cryptic messege and sent them off. I don't know where. Magma and Aqua were busy at the moment, and they had a false sense of security when it came to Doom.

Great chapter I saw no spelling errors or grammer mistakes. I almost felt bad for the gaurds when Ace attacked them lol ALMOST.

My Black Friend Code is 2494-8412-9545 and my name on Black is Trysten.
This is my badge for the NCTH to earn it you have to challenge the League and defeat me in a battle. Credit goes to Glover for the badge.
And here's the link to my fic http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...irth-of-a-Hero

Sounds like something destructive is about to happen... Hey glover I may bounce some ideas off of you about a story I may write. If you don't mind of course.

My Black Friend Code is 2494-8412-9545 and my name on Black is Trysten.
This is my badge for the NCTH to earn it you have to challenge the League and defeat me in a battle. Credit goes to Glover for the badge.
And here's the link to my fic http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthr...irth-of-a-Hero

So I just read all chapters and I have to say I'm not too impressed. The grammar is lacking, and some of the lines just don't make sense.

As one is want to do, a telephone rang in a family room.

I have no idea what that means in bold. I couldn't even guess what you were trying to say. This happens repeatedly throughout the story. Along with that, usually when the dialogue starts the description stops. It just becomes speech after that. You also never say who is speaking when. The dialogue becomes confusing and hard to follow. With the description, it's hardly there to begin with. This story is mostly explanation tied with dialogue and then a little description. You never describe what the Pokemon look like or Glover for that matter. You should read over your chapters and see how they flow. Read them out loud if you have to. Work on grammar and description. If not then it will turn people away. Character development is another thing. No one is developing. You need to make the characters develop so they can become better and more enjoyable. I wish you all the luck.

Credit goes to MagicMochi. Check out their shop.

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

While it is very reminiscent of a lot of journey trainer fics, it held my attention. It stands out among a lot of the other fics I've read lately and I'm excited to continue the story.

So I just read all chapters and I have to say I'm not too impressed. The grammar is lacking, and some of the lines just don't make sense.

I have no idea what that means in bold. I couldn't even guess what you were trying to say. This happens repeatedly throughout the story. Along with that, usually when the dialogue starts the description stops. It just becomes speech after that. You also never say who is speaking when. The dialogue becomes confusing and hard to follow. With the description, it's hardly there to begin with. This story is mostly explanation tied with dialogue and then a little description. You never describe what the Pokemon look like or Glover for that matter. You should read over your chapters and see how they flow. Read them out loud if you have to. Work on grammar and description. If not then it will turn people away. Character development is another thing. No one is developing. You need to make the characters develop so they can become better and more enjoyable. I wish you all the luck.

First off, thanks for dropping in a snd trying, anyway. And here I thought I was doing a little better myself, I'd had those same fears in the drafts but I'd thought I'd gotten them licked well enough. I'm not fond of "He said Hse said" dialogue, that's why I try to keep people's names in the dialogue themselves, but I'm gonna need a little more outside guidence than this for improvements. If you've got the time or the drive, then by all means pick this apart. I'm more than willing to go back to the front and overhaul before I stamp this. I've read them, I talk my way through stories, but I know what's going on. After so many rereads, I see what should be there, not what is there.

"As one is want to do" is a phrase I picked up from Dad, so it's probably got some age to it, it simply means A hone will ring, they tend to do that regularly." It's what I came up with. Hey, it got you to read mor,e didn't it? :P

"Oh, that's easy. Kyogre. For a while, he was parked right out there."

Should be a comma, or something to blend Kyogre into the previous sentence. Perhaps I'm wrong, but as I was reading this broke my rhythm and made me double back.

So I slipped out behind the guard again, who was back to ogling pictures of girls half his age, and thrice his league.

I liked that bit quite alot. I make observations like that all the time and I thought it was very well phrased. Nice work.

"We'll see, Glover, we'll see. Gotta get this mess sorted first. I appreciate you thinking of me, but it's jsut something I have to face, the world just isn't gonna leave me alone. Best I get some sleep then, so I can relieve you later."

spelling error

“Is' like this: There are inmates and there are prisoners. A prisoner has a certain code. And he knows to show a certain respect. An inmate, on the other hand, pulls the pin on his fellow man. Does the guards' work for them... brings shame... to the game. So, which are you gonna be?"

That portion really reminded me of the speech made by the head prisoner to Vin Diesel's character in 'The Chronicles of Riddick'...I always really enjoyed it. Nicely done on that bit as well.

After reading the posted chapters, I've come to the conclusion that you have the start of a Fic that really stands apart and has the capacity to be really exceptional. There are a few things that might hold you back from it though.

Your general lack of description of alot of the Pokemon, the area's the characters visit, and Pokemon attacks, kinda threw me off. Description pops the story off which makes the text become an image in your mind, and I've always believed in to be really integral to a good story. If you work a little bit more on it, there's no reason your story won't go straight to the top.

In some area's like the fight with the Sharpedo, you did extremely well in describing Ditto's attacks, which made me feel like I was there. Another area you excelled at was all the different ways and shapes you twisted Ditto into. The gun's, parachute's, etc. Very cool.

The dialogue however, leaves nothing to be desired. Your wordplay between characters; the sarcasm, compliments, snide remarks are all top shelf. Seriously some of the best stuff I've read since I recently started reviewing. If you can combine more description with the dialogue, you'd really be on to something.

All in all, I really like what I've been reading and I'm really excited to continue. Shadow Lucario had some really great points, and I think that if you take the advice given, you'll contiue to do really well.

An Ancient Treasure, a Terrible Price. Take the Risk, Eat the World

(Final Chapter added 05-15-2014)

-Thanks to PopPrincess_Lyra for the banner above, and Sworn Metalhead for the banner below -

Should be a comma, or something to blend Kyogre into the previous sentence. Perhaps I'm wrong, but as I was reading this broke my rhythm and made me double back.

Ah, yeah, I'll play with that, I can see where you're coming from.

“Is' like this: There are inmates and there are prisoners. A prisoner has a certain code. And he knows to show a certain respect. An inmate, on the other hand, pulls the pin on his fellow man. Does the guards' work for them... brings shame... to the game. So, which are you gonna be?"

That portion really reminded me of the speech made by the head prisoner to Vin Diesel's character in 'The Chronicles of Riddick'...I always really enjoyed it. Nicely done on that bit as well.

I'll let you in on a little secret, that's exactly where that came from. I had IMDB open on another screen and was paraphrasing as I went.

Your general lack of description of alot of the Pokemon, the area's the characters visit

Hmm. This is something that I wrestle with when I read other fic. And your right, it's convincing myself, but when I read, I know what a Sharpedo looks like, have some idea of their actions; I tend to skip through descriptions and get on with the story.

After reading the posted chapters, I've come to the conclusion that you have the start of a Fic that really stands apart and has the capacity to be really exceptional.

Thanks! I find this kinda ironic, in that this story originally started as a "Gee, I really like this universe you guys are setting up, can I play too?" side story, a "Where was Glover during all of this" opportunity, and that it underneath the tarnish and all that I do need to work on, it's trying to be something on it's own.

I'm glad you're enjoying Gizmo. He's really stolen the show from the others.

Again, thank you for stoping in. As I've promised with Shadow, I will reciprocate the review to Requiem. It may take me a while, I've missed a few of Tempest's postings due t a new work schedule and I'm not getting through Shadow's story as quick as I should or want to, but I will make it over there at some point soon.

With that, I'm going to see if I can do anything with the next chapter which was supposed to go up 10 hours ago, and get it online as well.

The red light faded quickly from the Pokéball storage room, but one Pokémon did not appear when it did.

There were twelve.
Specifically, one humanoid shaped one in a rust color and turquoise highlights, and eleven similar creatures in shades of lavender, all of the latter eyeless and presumably also lacking a soul.

Unfortunately, for Ace, while looking rather like an alien meets zombie B movie creature, these lavender duplications lacked one important thing in their mission to open the other Pokéballs manually, one crucial thing that made Ace distinctive from his “clones”.

They had no hands; No fingers with which to push buttons. So while three of them went to work thrashing the present Aqua agents with long whip tentacles, the others began laying waste to the shelves, in the vaguest of hopes that a few errant Pokéballs would land on their buttons. And a few did, revealing Pelipper and Electric types mostly. Were Ace paying attention, he'd have sighed. He had been hoping, since this was after all an electric gym, for something like a Geodude, or Makuhita. He’d even have settled for a bipedal Meowth.

But he wasn't paying attention. His white eyes were fixed on a man in a white lab coat, a man he'd not seen in nine years. The face wasn't truly distinctive; he looked like every other researcher across the planet. He meant something to Ace, though. Ace squinted hard at the R&D, who glared right back, looking menacing and commanding at the creation he’d been so heavily involved in. The man reached for a Pokéball, but a long, blue tentacle cracked the air like a bullwhip and split the difference between his hand and the saving orb.

Behind those two, the room began to slowly fill with Pokémon. Amber's guards, who had accompanied the Researcher and the room attendant decided now was a great time to be doing... anything else, and left quickly. In the mayhem, something had found a Machamp, and you what they say; four hands are better than two.

"You."

"Been a while XD 00. How're those new abilities working out?"

"Go rot, Hospel. You know what it's like having to live life as energy because someone screwed with your genetic matrix?"

"No, I do not." He reached behind him slowly. A Sabeleye appeared from Hospel's Pokéball. Purple fur and devilish teeth crawled up the scientist’s back and launched itself from his shoulder. Ace wasn’t too concerned though, even despite the type advantage. His arms went from a single tentacle to two. The right side caught and constricted around the dual typed gremlin Pokémon while the Left formed not one but three Energy Balls between them, lined up between the amorphous limbs as one would see in a Pinball machine and popped them one by one into the suffocating purple creature’s gemstone eyes and face until it fell limp.

Hospel didn’t miss a beat, even despite the fast-paced battle. “You know, if your current master had left you, we'd have had time to finish you."

Ace hurled the fainted jewel Pokémon at Hospel. "You know, if you weren't a worthless excuse for Humanity, you wouldn't have been using my life crystal to study how to make evil Pokémon, or try to play God."

About that time, the backup grunts summoned by the PA broke into the room to find that the people they were backing up were gone, and that it was rapidly filling with pissed off Pokémon that had been cooped up for far too long. Several Grunts dropped to the floor, trying to find Pokéballs to recall the enemy army that was forming. It worked to a point, until a Gallade found three Delibird. Several Hariyama began using their huge hands to scoop and shovel Pokéballs, and began to pour them into the penguins' Hammer space tails for safe keeping.

A Rhydon took pressure off the room, blowing a hole in a wall and allowing the Pokémon to pour out as they appeared. More Grunts were running for the commotion, some toward and others away, drawing out their own Pokémon. Armadas of Sharpedo and Mightyena joined battalions of Camerupt and Ninetales in the hallways. With Ace pre-occupied, his comrade Magnezone, my own Dreadniught put his processor like mind to work organizing the troops. Strong and sturdy Pokémon shuffled to the front, healers to the back, and smaller Pokémon set to work amongst people's feet. Gun toting grunts found themselves useless as Weedle and Wrumple squirmed up their pant leg and buried a poisonous spike into their leg. Those trying to command Pokémon found theselves trying to avoid stepping on Spikes, Plusle and Minun, and other various electric types who were all to easy to loose track of in the melee.

Seeing an opportunity, an Alakazam partnered with two Kirlia and a Gardevoir. The gym raised Voltorb and those native to the Underground power plant found themselves teleported into inconsiderate locales amongst the opposing teams and all to eagerly did what Voltorb do best.

---
"It really is too bad that you're so broken XD-Zero, you could have been something. That Lugia, he was nothing compared to the plans we had for you."

Ace stepped closer. "No one. Makes plans of me. Not as a weapon, not as a tool for domination." A pair of tentacles made a small snap in the air, inches from Hospel's head, forming Ace's hand. He patted the R&D on the cheek softly three times. "But don't worry. I don't have grudges." Then he raised his hand up with a dawning of realization. "Oh, wait. No, its scruples I don't have." And with that, his hand went firmly to the bad Doctor's head like it was being sucked on, his eyes blazing with fyry through the large, slanted slits on his head. One thumb went to the base of the sinus cavity, while an index finger stuck firmly to the temple.

Hospel got out one loud scream before his eyes dilated, the veins in them turning a chilling arctic blue.

"I didn't need Regenerator. Said firmly, pulsing another burst of energy through his fingers and into Hospel’s head. The Viral Pokémon delivered a retort he’d been forming since the day they first cracked his matrix. It had all the soul and emotion Ace had ever known poured into it. He’d only been on Earth a short time before they took him, and it had been a wrong, but a bad first impression. ”I was fast enough without you trying to cram Speed Boost into my Matrix. I have no use for Battle Armor, nor did I need any Pure Power. I've had enough of your Research, and I’m sick of having to stay in a Pokéball because you screwed with things you had no business working with. I may be born from a virus, but you, your kind, you're a disease to Pokémon."

Hospel gasped, it was all he could get out. Ace's hand glowed for what would be the last thing he did to the reaserch and development scientist. Deoxys were rare creatures to the Hoenn region, no one knew the true extent of their power, or what it even was. Then the veins on the left side of Hospel's head, around where Ace's hand made contact, began to swell through his skin and show turquoise as a nasty chemical racing through the bloodstream triggered.

Ace held Hospel up by the connection to his head. The human skin strained and started to tear from the weight dangling, but inside, his body began to scream with an entirely worse agony while intense heat pulsed. Ace had done one thing and one thing only, he'd given Hospel his own curse; Cipher’s failed attempts at an auto-healing, Regenerating, rapidly duplicating Pokémon that now haunted Ace uncontrolled. He’d set Hospel’s own body into a cancerous overdrive. Rapidly and unnaturally, the human’s skin wrinkled and extended as musculature bulged, fat atrophied, and organs began to outgrow their confines. For one brief moment, he felt like the Hulk, like Bane, like a Machamp with raw power surging without the power-saver belt. That godly feeling lasted until his brain started to press into his skull, padded suddenly by sick and diseased tissue. It ended when his lungs began to fill with themselves; when his throat started to close; when he began to choke on his own tongue.

”Don’t worry, unlike my own experience, you’re pain will end soon.”

At that point, a Magma grunt moved to fulfill the prophecy, and attempted to shoot Ace in the back. He’d just made it into the room, and reacted more out of fear than anything else, but the true nature of Cipher's experiments on Ace showed; already, his own body was starting to bulge slightly under his outer layers. He figured, barring any heavy battling, he’d have about four hours before he’d have to be recalled, resetting the crystalline matrix again or else risking a molecular unbalance and rupturing himself. His body was nothing but a carefully laid out solid pack, and though his crystalline organ was his only true organ, aside from his eyes and sensor nodes, it wasn’t programmed to starting budding off unnaturally.

The bullet ricocheted twice, driving into Hospel’s skull and ending his misery.

Ace turned on the point of his feet 180* to face the Magma grunt, who had already dropped his gun and was trying to be very small indeed. For a brief moment, Ace’s wrath wanted to turn on the man, Hospel hadn’t suffered long enough yet. But the man meant nothing to Ace; and he wasn’t really out to kill anyone who got in his way. The Virus Pokémon took to his defense form and jumped over the grunt and into the fray in the hallway.

The poor grunt only watched as Hospel’s body, burning through its last reserves of energy, closed the wound and briefly continued to expand.
---
Word spread through the prisoners as work continued. We weren’t to look like an organized threat, this was all about some rambunctious Pokémon who had gotten free. Even still, I finally found the original mark of my mission, and began drilling sideways across the wall again. Coming up behind two ladies and a gentleman, all three ragged looking, I held my finger up to my lip.

“Shh. Don’t acknowledge my existence. When all Hell breaks loose, grab the children and stay by me, and you will see your sister again.” They started, then remembered my first order about not acknowledging me, and went back to work.

---
On the outer perimeter, security was beginning to be tightened in case the prisoners tried something funny. One of the minority Magmas guarding the outer perimeter heard a crackling sound in his radio. He held it up to his ear, but there was no sound.

No sound, but there was an action. At that moment, a powerful electrical current travelled down the radio and into his arm. Nerves sizzled and his arm snapped straight out, pointing the antennae across the compound's entrance to an Aqua Guard in another tower. The antennae began to vibrate as sound waves began to move down it, and burst out into the open-air as a Sonicboom attack. The wave of compressed air tore through the legs holding up the canopy of the targeted guard shack, knocking the two Aqua Guards out of it as it tilted and fell down.

Then there was another pulse from the radio. Uncontrolled, the Magma grunt's arm turned at the shoulder to another tower. Rapidly, another Sonicboom burst forth, taking out another of the Aqua manned towers.

"So, the landlubber wants a mutiny.” Another Aqua called to his teammates. “Boys, light this traitor up." Machinegun fire heralded several Team Magma re-enforcements, who burst into the fading drizzle in time to see one of their own mowed down by Aqua grunts in numerous guard towers.

"What's this? Those washouts want to get rid of the competition eh? Magmas! Evaporate them for what they did to our member!"

---
And here stood the kingpin of my planning. Throughout my blow-through traveling, it was always Magma and Aqua. Magma this, Aqua that, never a single unified title. Now, as cries of "Traitor!" and "Backstabbers" rushed through the ranks like wildfire, the old rivalry reared its ugly head.

Which, for us meant that when Commanders burst into the rooms holding the first of us prisoners, they weren't being backed up, and it took little effort to quietly knock 'em on the heads with pick-axes and digger drills. In the fire rooms, rudimentary and highly limited but still warm tongs and forks for shaping new bits made their way into enemy flesh before a single shot or Pokéball could be fired.

Michelangelo made a valid point to me as we addressed progress. If we asserted ourselves too quickly as a threat, then we risked re-unifying the currently rogue factions of our Keepers.

"The Enemy of my Enemy is someone catching bullets instead of me." as he put it. Not the quote I remember, but it works, I think.

---
"MORONS!" A Blonde man in a pseudo-pirate uniform addressed a field of men outside the compound. "SIMPLETONS! Of ALL the days to pick fights, when there's a rebellion inside MY prison, and YOU all decide to play last man standing! You think he's the traitor? Ask your comrades inside being outnumbered."

It didn't matter the color of the uniform, Admin Amber of Aqua had struck a chord. Soldiers looked at their feet sheepishly.

“And what, exactly, prompted this insurrection?" No one spoke. "Anyone? So you all just decided to shoot everyone?" Brows sweated in the clear sky. "I take your silence to mean I should just shoot you."

"No." Finally, one grunt opened his mouth, fully aware of his foot swinging up to fill the vast cavity. "Shoot the Aquas. They started the whole match."

"Weapon? Bob didn't have no weapon, he's not trained for anything above a taser."

"Then it was a Pokémon attack, a Sonicboom maybe."

"Bob didn't have any Pokemon."

"Oh? then you must have taken them off the body or something."

"We did no such thing! All he had was a radio!"

"EN-OUGH." Amber saw the tension building to a dangerous level. "Somebody BRING me that radio then." Fifty hands ripped Bob's uniform apart before someone else caught a glint of sun and picked it up five feet from his now bullet-ridden body and the vultures trying to please a peeved off commanding officer.

The Aqua Admin examined the “super” device. It was a worn piece, looks like it was hit by a Donphan. On its back it was marked Motorola, though oddly, something had worn off all but the first four letters, which looked almost new compared to the ancient device. Something began turning over in his mind, a report.

"We had sightings of a Rotom in our communications line." He had been told by Archie himself.

Then it started to add up. Sonicboom=Electric=Rotom. All at once, he felt like a Dunce. They took in a trainer two days ago, and when they did, they had found a stolen Magma Radio. He'd planted a Rotom, and that thing was now multiplying across the prison. They'd been played for fools. There would be Hell to pay for that.

"EVERYONE INSIDE!" He bellowed. "Quickly, before they have time to finish arming themselves!" To speed them back up, he added “You Dunklopfs had been baited and we all fell for it!"

---
A Grovyle ran in. The Pokémon’s arm leaf blades were still glowing a vibrant green against it’s forest colored skin and under patches of red liquid. It burst into the room as a forward scout, blades at the ready. It picked its first target, the man closest to it was a big man, but it quickly recognized he wasn't wearing the same uniform as the other humans he had slashed his way through. Then someone shouted "Rango! You're okay!" from across the wide room they had been working on. Noth thinking anything about a military precise prison break, a thin, starved, brunette girl threw her tools down and ran to the Pokémon, rapping her arms around its thin neck and embracing the lithe body in her own. Both companions sobbed happily.

Then someone shrieked. Behind Rango were three lavender phantoms, their eyeless faces held no expression to their battle-stance bodies, but they turned and nodded to the room before moving further down the hall, recognizing it as not a threat.

Rango was then joined by a multitude of other Pokémon from all regions and habitats. Tears of joy began to soften the ground around where we had been working from trainers who had been here for months without their friends and companions. Other Lavender Phantoms acted as chaperones and took the unclaimed Pokémon to the next room, and so on, distributing the army to their trainers.

'What do we do with the rest?' A telepathic thought came to me a few minutes later.

"Others?"

'Those whose trainers are no longer living.' He said with a usual, unintended coldness.

I sighed, trying to hold off emotion until we were out of this mess. "Where are they?"

'I've got a few still, but some of them have run off after futile hopes of finding their Trainers."

"We ask for help from them I guess, and let them mourn I guess."

A war cry sounded from outside, they'd re-aligned. Everyone had their Pokémon, though we still had a few hundred Pokéballs left to sort out, when the call to counter-attack rang through New Mauville. Trainers and Grunts clashed, Flamethrowers collided with Water Pulses. Once again, we had close-quarters battling. There was more strategy this time though, a man called Wattson lead a group to the old store-rooms to collect supplies, forcing their way through what was left of the Magma and Aqua squadrons still inside. Once, my group found ourselves surrounded when another wing of Prisoners met up and bailed us out. We spent a half-hour underground, trying to break down our enemies and get ourselves ready, before they began retreating outside.

The Citizens of Mauville ran after them, but the Doom Fang leader looked to me. "This is too easy."

"You're right." It took me a moment--too long of one-- before it dawned on me how bright and pleasant looking it was outside.

"STOP EVERYONE!" But it was too late. The first mass of people streamed out of the cave with murder in their eyes, revenge on their minds, and freedom in their hearts. The mouth of it burst into a yellow maelstrom of energy with red laced around it, and the front-line of this rebellion vaporized in an intense Hyper Beam.

"Which isn't much." Someone in the group chortled. There was a unified burst of chuckling until Wes shot the "Fallarbor Minutemen" an evil stare.

“More running”, he commanded. There hadn’t been so much a strict timetable as a “Watch and react”, though they'd lost too much time going around the stone wall around Mauville, and Wes knew it. In the pit of his stomach, something was teasing him: “You’re too late! You’ll never make it!”

The sky reverberated a deep rumble from overhead. They head it before they saw the attack launch. "Oh My God." and "Arceus No!" came from the group. A great yellow beam descended from the heavens and silenced the first wave of the people and Pokémon they were coming to save.

First, to comment on something you said before the new chapter, then comes my comments on the new chapter

Hmm. This is something that I wrestle with when I read other fic. And your right, it's convincing myself, but when I read, I know what a Sharpedo looks like, have some idea of their actions; I tend to skip through descriptions and get on with the story.

I understand what you're saying, and I fall into that sometimes as well. I know what one looks like to, but if I didn't, that passage may not make sense to me. Granted, ninety-nine percent of people who read your fic will know exactly what a particular Pokemon is when you mention one, but it still enhances the story to see it described. I'm glad you take that seriously. I'm going to move to the next chapter now, where your description has increased exponentially!

he's not trained for anything above a tazer

Its actually spelled 'Taser'

"You know, if you weren't a worthless excuse for Humanity, you wouldn't have been using my life crystal to study how to make evil Pokémon, or try to play God."

Could be wrong, but I don't think 'humanity' should be capitalized

Ace turned on the point of his feet 180* to face the Magma grunt,

I guess it comes down to personal taste when you put numbers instead of words, but it threw me off a bit.

command Pokémon found theselves trying to avoid steppiung Spikes,

Did you mean 'stepping'? Or 'stepping on'? Regardless, just a spelling error.

Besdies that, I really felt like you knocked it out of the park. The descriptions were perfect. Everything you wrote, I could visualize easily. Even on things where you described just one or two features of the object or person, it really helped me out. I could tell what a Pokemon was with one or two of your sentences, which was alot more gratifying than just having their names and actions thrown at me.

Another part I really enjoyed was how you described Deoxys; felt almost sinister. I always thought of Deoxys as the accidental hero, and the way you wrote made me think of him in a much different way. I love having my view of something flipped, especially when it comes to Pokemon.

As I'm sure you know, the dialogue was flawless. Though I've come to expect that from you. The admin's and grunt's speech was especially well done.

Man, those Pokemon were pissed. The psychic types teleporting Voltorb's was probably my favorite bit. Not only could I see it in my head as I was reading, but it felt like something they would actually do. I always thought that Pokemon have the capacity to be as violent and psychotic as any human. I thought you captured that very well.

I can tell you in all honesty that this has been my favorite chapter. Great job, and I can't wait to read the next installment.

An Ancient Treasure, a Terrible Price. Take the Risk, Eat the World

(Final Chapter added 05-15-2014)

-Thanks to PopPrincess_Lyra for the banner above, and Sworn Metalhead for the banner below -

"There's our mark!" Wes tried to ignore the obvious, heart wrenching emotion and get everyone into action, so they'd do the same. Now was not the time to have a operation fall apart on them, after all. "Quickly! While Rayquaza is recharging!"

Any self-respecting Dragon Tamer will have some stage of Dratini, regardless of where they are from. Dragonair tend to be the more popular ones, possibly because the girls love them, and guys who have them, though there are several trained Dragonite out there. This group didn't disappoint. 15 Pokéballs popped open, and twelve sky blue flying serpents went straight into the air flanked by three creamy orange dragons. Several unevolved Dratini stayed on the ground, joined by Bagon, Axew, Druddigon, and related flightless evolutions of the former three, all ready to take the fight to the Grunts.

The Dragonair battle plan was simple: They wound themselves around the Rayquaza and began shooting it in the back of the massive, ancient head and impeding movement while also making the creature heavier than its own lifting abilities. The stronger ones who were more coordinated began trying to whip up storms, trying to distract the Rayquaza further by taxing its Air Lock abilities.

Once the Sky God was suitably distracted, several mean, muscular Salemence and a rare, well tempered Hydregion burst into the fray. Serpents are usually the more agile of the creatures, even in the air and using special bodily gasses for creating lift, but with the Dragonair acting as casts on its body, the Rayquaza was having an extremely tough time turning its head or swiping at foes with its tail.

On the ground, Wes turned to Mario. "If you wish, I know you've wanted to say it."

"Really? You'll let me?" He looked down to the green Bagon still in his arms, which until it noticed it was being looked at was yearning to be up in the air tangling with a god amongst his Salamence bretheren.

'Ba? Bagon! Ba!'

"Alright! I mean, thank you Wes." The he faced the trainers behind him, Farmers, Hikers's Black Belts and Battle Girls, Veterans and CoolTrainers. He raised an arm and shouted "Company, CHARGE!"

Wes held his face in disgust. "That was a nice thing you did dear." Rui spoke as she patted him on the back.

"Remind me to stop doing that, being nice I mean."

---
The Grunts had run well clear of the entrance before Rayquaza had fired and were poised in a firing line of Pokémon and weaponry to absorb our next wave, thus they were not expecting the force from outside of the compound, and found themselves caught between an unknown number of trainers who thought they could bring down the Ruler of the Skies and a vengeful group of prisoners who’d been locked up for way to long.

"Was that a Skarmory?" Someone in New Mauville asked.

"No, that was a god-send. Now everyone, quickly, Swarm them!"

No one moved. No one. Not one person was going to step outside, not after something swpet a large group of people away like so much dust. They couldn’t quite make out the rear flanking, or that now was our only window of opportunity, So I took the step myself dashing out and to the side, trying to evade the attacks of a few straggler Grunts that had thought to watch their back.

“C’mon! I yelled. “We haven’t much time!”

Slowly, a few followed me, dazed and unaware, still in shock that people could vaporize so quickly. Then a few more, until countless bodies on two legs, four, twelve, all raced for the entrance with caution mixed into a restarted vengeance. The ragtag army of civilians slammed into the weakened wall of the Oppressive. Not being backed by their biggest weapon, itself tied up by the likes of Dragonair and being attacked by Dragonite, Hydregion, and Salamence, it was all starting to go wrong for Magma/Aqua. And as the ancient Serpent fell closer and closer to the Earth, more and more Pokémon appeared within targeting range to further weaken it, until the great Rayquaza finally just landed on the ground outright with a crash and a huge clud of dirt and dust.

Although, this put it in a much better attacking position, as it was now in position start whacking at us with sixty feet of emerald tail. “Don’t let that thing hit you!” Someone wisely called.

Mario took a surprising command of the “baby” or unevolved Dragons. Being small and spritely, they slid around the Rayquaza’s front; part of its body best called its stomach and lower abdomen, where the tail stopped squirming for its attacks and what was sitting on the ground. Behind the great beast’s lower midsection, several grunts were hunkered down with Magmar, taking pot shots at the jailbreak.

---
Under cover of fire, both literally and figuratively, Wes and a few of the Fallarbor men slid around the flanks to link up with us. He flopped down behind the tin roof of one of the fallen shacks I was using for cover. Moto did good work.

“This is taking to long.” He informed me, then noticing the bubblegum colored fatigues, “Nice outfit.”

“A few, but none of them work right now…” he pointed to the big green lizard. “But the longer we’re here, the longer we risk them getting re-inforcements. And if that happens,” It went unspoken, but if that happened, there’d be no more Mauville prisoners, they’d just slaughter us wholsale.

I peeked out over the side, with a Ditto impersonating a Bazooka of Energy Ball attacks to take a few quick shots. One of them landed a hit on a Camerupt, another grazed a Mightyena, but only barely.

“Hey, you think you can do that again, Wes?”

“Do what?”

“that line you walked to get over here”. I turned slightly away from him and clicked my tongue twice. Kik-kit. Kik-kit.

On command, Moonlight dashed across the battlefield. “Round up a few strong trainers and bring them over here.” The Umbreon furled his brow at me. “Yes, I know we’re tight on those, be stingy where you pull from.”

‘Breon’. He told me and dashed off.

“What are you getting at, Glover?”

“You’ll see. Ace!”

The lead Deoxys turned. He was in the thick of duplications now, exhausting the bullets of a few AK wielding foot soldiers. I made a wide sweeping motion with both arms. He nodded and a faint flicker of violet shown through the sky.

“You’re going to push them into a corner, Glover. Aren’t you concerned about the cornered cat lashing back?”

“More than a bit, but we need the room.” Kik-kit. Sunbeam appeared this time to the single click. “I need you to round up the Joys from the area. Bring Rui too, and Wattson if you can find him. Crazed old kook, means well, white scruffy beard that looks like a bald Delibird?”

“Espi.”

Wes glared at me. “We need a Peace Corps, and she’s the best for it. Before too long, we’re going to exhaust our Pokémon. Someplace in the back, where we can have a few creatures run Heal Pulse and Softboiled, maybe the Hariyama still have Smellingsalts and Wake Up Slap that we can temper down in lieu of proper medication.”

“Well, alright, if she’s out of harm’s way then.”

“Best I can do.”

The first group ducked and approached. I sent them with Wes, and were joined by a few more Deoxys duplicates. Not two words into my explanation, and the assembled Joys all understood a centralized Triage. I whistled for Galvantula to weave up a quick web tent, and then to hunker down on top of it to run anti-air. We didn’t need any flying types doing bombing runs our red-cross. Wattson and his electric types would assist.

Over a ways, a looming Magnezone was cheerfully directing Magnemite and Magneton in a suppressing swarm. Since his fusing evolution, he’d lost the two comrades that had been his fast friends and somewhat missed being amongst others of his species. Despite a type weakness to half of the enemy force, a wide sweep of Tri Attacks was doing a fair job at keeping things at bay. A number of fast, nimble targets couldn’t risk a hit, and the Sturdy and sturdier Pokémon like Lairon and Aggron were slow enough that ground teams could hit them hard, and fortunately Torchic was a popular starter. There were more Skarmory than I think anyone would have liked, negating an Electric type advantage, but as soon as Ferriday was up and running with the triage shelter, and he did a very nice job with it despite being a non charged, but still extremely bright electric yellow, the two electric types made a plan: focus on the Steel Types and whatever is in the crossfire, let the other flyers dogfight, and anything left Ferriday would amuse himself with.

I need to talk to him about using Swellow as bolos though. It’s certainly effective, but not all that moral…

---
Behind a firing wall, Amber got a phone call; he wisely held it several inches from his ear.

-"Just what the Hell are you doing with that Rayquaza?" Maxie and Archie had been alerted to a situation on Mt. Pyre. The Emerald Orb was going crazy in its pedestal, shaking and vibrating violently with each hit Rayquaza took; giving the Serpent the opportunity to resist the control they had over him. Unlike the Groudon and Kyogre, who’s souls were the Red and Blue Orbs, the new orb was created and artificially “attached” to Rayquaza; the bond was much weaker.

---
A brilliant light streaked across the horizon, striking the Green Serpent squarely. A Deep, ominous sound echoed between the buildings.

Regirock appeared, grabbed the Rayquaza's mouth, closing it shut in the midst of an Ice Beam. The stone golem began wrestling the bigger creature like an Alligator, fighting for dominance. The Rayquaza thrashed hard under the weight of the stone golem and the attacks, its older body not weathering well, but being larger, gave it more leverage until it managed to toss the Regi off.

Ace looked up from the main struggle. The most therapeutic thing he’d done so far today, he’d spawned off a horde of clones and for once in his life could almost feel cozy in his own skin as he and his others lashed out with violent whipping attacks. No sooner did the grunts overwhelm one duplication, causing it to shatter into a million glimmering sparks, did another three take their place. The constant Substitution moves were draining for the Psychic type, but the basis of Cipher’s plans for him pulled through, allowing Regenerator to build up some of the lost energy.

He could see it through the genetic markers. That Rayquaza was somehow wrong, he could tell it was being linked to something, some natural signal was manipulating him. The Viral Pokémon spawned off a few more phantoms before teleporting directly in front of the Rayquaza’s face.

The sky serpent had its eyes shut while struggling, but an ingrained sense told him to look. An outsider to the planet his species was charged with guarding was there, something his race had been ingrained to fight against. One massive eye opened and focused. His mouth free, he opened it wide and Hyper Beamed the strange creature at point blank. There was a great sizzle, and an indestructible crystal hovered in air for a second. It shimmered, and like a mirage, the creature Rayquaza had just blasted coalesced back into form.

Thanks, I needed that.

So, as Magma had instructed into the Rayquaza’s mind-control, he blasted again, just as soon as he had the energy built up from the last shot. And when the alien creature reformed a second time, he fired a third. And a fourth. But with each shot, from the deepest recesses of his ancient mind, he started to remember just what it was he was shooting. “Attack that” began to turn into “Attack that intruder,…

….he is not of this world…,

…this world you were charged to protect.”

Like the flicker of a candle, it dawned on the Rayquaza where he was and what was going on. I am not protecting this world, I am endangering it.
---A crack formed in the Green Orb, and that was all it needed. All at once, the shaman voodoo magic that so few understood and held faith in expanded rapidly as a boiler explosion would. Emerald slivers shot through the air at high velocities; they sailed through bodies, embedded themselves through ceilings and floors of stone, sliced through tombstones, and even rooted themselves firmly into the core of the Red and Blue Orbs.

As the lizard fell limp, free and exhausted, Amber dropped his phone, missing his bosses' tirade completely. At that same moment, a thousand miles away, a messenger sprinted up to Maxie.

Fortress Fortree had fallen. Another insurrection, led by another bold trainer had overpowered the guards.

Orders were rapidly passed. Amber was to lead his team, or what was left of it, and reorganize with the shore batteries at a smaller point to making sure the two parties don't link up. Groudon would take care of this party, while Kyogre met the others. Angrily, the Aqua commander shook his fist at me as his warriors recalled their Pokémon and raced for the hills.

"What was all that about?" Everyone looked around expecting a trap. But nothing happened.

'Dee! di di dee di dee!' All eyes turned to the waddle of Delibird, with crossed eyes and their tongues hanging out of their panting beaks as they lugged their overloaded tails out into the open.

"That's a most wonderful idea, those of you who haven't already gotten your Pokéballs back, please do so. The rest of you, let's find some food and some medicine, we haven't much time before we need to move."

Michelangelo turned. "Now you's hold on just a moment, why do you think youse givin orders when this is Fang territory?" Most of the prisoners weren't paying attention, they were too busy unloading the Delibird like a mugged Santa Claus at Christmas, but he wasn’t letting me out of his focus anyway.

"Last I checked, you were a gang, not a political party. I appreciate what you did in New Mauville, how hospitable you were to my plans, but I see a lot of nice folks who have no business in a warzone, and I'm taking them to Slateport to hop the first ship I can," At that point, I saw the Mauville and Slateport Officers Jenny listening closely and muttering something. "Ah, make that confiscate."

"Over my cold aft. Lissen folks, we're chasing them from here, no surrender, and no chance to recover and retaliate. You got a problem with that, you can just march right back in there."

Apparently, a lot of the people not going MINE! MINE! MINE! over the Delibird had problems with that, but they weren't marching. They tapped the shoulders of their comrades and pointed them to the brewing struggle.

"So this is what it is, then? After all we do to protect yas, we get the cold shoulder while this whack wants to run away with the babes and the babies?"

"He's right. This isn't my fight, you guys don't need ne though. And you definitely don't need them. All you all have to do is to link up with your friends, neighbors, and countrymen. You all watched thirty people take down a god. It wasn’t easy, but they did it. Was I there? No. Neither was a leatherjacket wannabe leader."

He spat on the ground towards my feet, and reached for a Pokéball, to find he still hadn't gotten his yet. Not deterred, and definitely not going to concede thay I was right about getting Pokémon back to their humans, he snapped his fingers. A seven foot tall man with a caveman face and a body best measured best by its diameter and circumference stepped forward, and cracked his knuckles. Even in prison fatigues, he was an imposing man.

Dreadnaught bolted to the front, but I waved the magnet Pokémon down. Instead, I took my coat from Espeon, who’d lovinglydrug it outby the collar with her feline mouth, rummaged around in a pocket in the right hand guard, and pulled out a small pellet gun.

Michelangelo laughed heartily. "You call that a gun? Thug's seen meaner things held in kids with Super Soakers."

The man Michelangelo called "Thug" didn't look worried. Truthfully, he was probably bulletproof a thousand pounds ago, but I was going more for what was insidethe pellets.

I fired the first shot as he started to rush for me, his big hands out in grappling position. The pellet broke across his right knee. I followed it with a second one, then a third. Then taking several quick steps backward to keep pace with him and thankful he wasn’t all that fast on thick, stubby legs, and therefore easily able to stay out of his reach, I re-aimed for the base of his neck to start spreading around the Ode' de Amoongus: Effect Spore.

I back stepped over a small rock. Thug started to daze in his eyes, and his right foot didn't clear the first divot. The partially paralyzed knee buckled under his immense weight, he fell to his hands.

"Again?" I queried.

He shook off the sleepy feeling, and stood back up. Thug was a man of few words, he spoke his volumes by charging me again.

I took aim for his shoulders, hoping the next time he fell he wouldn't be limber enough to pull himself up, but Effect Spore tricked me and went for Poison. It was not my favorite of the side-effects, and I really would prefer to be able to mix Spore and Stun Spore and be done with it, but I could never get the mixes right.

Thug turned dizzy, and queasy. He rushed one of the five of me he was now seeing, ran smack into a boulder, crushed it, and fell over.

"Again?"

He just gurgled, so I tossed the man a few berries.

"Fine, you lot of sissies. Jus’ run with your tails tucked then." He snapped his fingers again, and several men stepped forward. They were all Doom Fang riders, but they weren't all of the Doom Fang Riders. Many of the remainder fidgeted and slid further into the thresh of people, hoping to be unseen by the boss they were now ditching.
Michelangelo stooped at the Delibird to snatch his Pokéballs, but was handed an odd looking glowing orb instead by a michievious penguin. Before he could think any more on it, the Delibird’s Present exploded in his face. He punted the bird, sending it and Pokéballs flying everywhere and pouring hundreds and hundreds of them from the sky. In response, the other Delibird turned and ice-beamed the entire biker gang.

“That works. They’ll thaw out when Groudon catches up.”

"You're seriously gonna leave them, Glover?"

"Rui, there's a half-mile of pure and unfiltered sunlight coming this way, they'll be fine."

"That's cold."

"Yeah, but we don't have much choice, we've got to get moving soon. Sunbeam, Moonlight, would you please go check on the supply runners?"

'Esp.' They raced each other into the cave like the overly-competitive siblings they are.

Before long, they returned with many people in tow. They had medicine, and anything edible that could be eaten quickly. By then, I had some Revival Herb ground into water, stored in one of the many pockets on my League jacket. Rayquaza was going to hate it, but they absorb their nutrients from moisture, and I was pretty sure any sweet bread was going to be a bit much for him.

The great serpent choked on his soup, but grunted in appreciation for the gift. An understanding went around at that point, if anyone tried to catch that Rayquaza, they would be quickly and painfully dealt with.

"Great,” I told everyone and no one when the supply runners emerged, “let's distribute while we move. We'll take the bridge into Slateport."

"Won't the Aquas use that?" came a chorus of replies.

Wes took the answer for me. "Of course they will, if they’re coming to meet us and assuming they don't boat to wherever the Mauville contingent was heading. That's why Glover doesn't want us under them.

Looks of clarity. They all nodded to each other, and began packing up.

I slid back through a pack of people that was forming. Many of them didn’t want to leave. On the other hand, a good number of them didn’t have anything to go back to just yet, so it didn’t matter.

I caught up to Ace, who was phasing out the last of his instant army. “That was a neat thing you did back there.”

”Thank You.” then attempting a still somewhat alien concept of sarcasm, ”Remind me never to do that again.”

"Deal. How are you feeling?"

He hesitated. "I'm fine." I patted his back, both to re-assure him and tell how badly he was lying. His back felt like a steel plate, tougher even than any Aggron as the cloud of particles around his ever reproducing body was being crammed into one or another form. And though he was the only Deoxys I've ever felt, I knew that wasn’t right. He made a motion like a sigh, greatly hindered by not having a mouth, or lungs, and surrendered. "I'll confess. Being blasted by a Rayquaza is not the next big thing in Spa sales. It resets me, but takes a bit of energy out, moreso than the Substitute clones. But for feeling like I have six of me under my skin, I feel fine. With your permission, I'm ready to be relieved."

A Delibird ran up and handed me a pink and cream ball, as if on cue. I patted its head, took the offered item, and gave it to Ace. He tapped it to his arm, it opened, and I caught the orb in its drop."Much Better."

"Good. Take a rest then friend."

"Thank you. And Glover? Thank you for being the one to rescue me, for letting me be useful to this world."

"You’re welcome."

I collapsed Ace’s ball and turned to the "troops". Such that we were, we were a force to be reckoned with in the short haul. Already, I was picking out faces I knew would want to stay and fight, that by my own conscience I could not allow. There were too many battered souls, bruised mentalities, shattered minds hiding behind facades of toughness and harsh prison treatment. Facades I knew would only hold so long. Wes and the "Fallarbor Minutemen" would have their work cut out for them.

Was this a good idea? I couldn't stay, but could I leave them? Would they be alright until help came? Surely Lance had already gotten a battalion together, done something. Surely he was smart enough to be ready as soon as I arrived. Could they hold out for that long?

I felt a soft patch of velvet rub against my leg. Sunbeam mewed and looked up at me. They were going to have to.